JRDT ( Joseph Rural Development Trust } is a small charity working in Tamil Nadu, Southern India.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Visit from Canada

Last week was Aurelie and Marlon here to visit us. Originally are they from Canada but was at the moment in Chennai and decided to pay us at JRDT a visit. They meet the kids at JRDT Orphanage, all the children have now returned from visiting their families so everyone was finally gathered, and Aurelie and Marlon had nicely enough brought a lot of gifts for the children. 

They got new shoes, specs and also English dictionaries which was great since it gives the children a possibility to improve their English even more! 

Thank you very much Aurelie and Marlon for you visit and the great gifts and do not hesitate to come and visit us again!



New shoes and new dictionaries





  

Monday, September 24, 2012

My very last week in India

I started my last week in India with going to St. Joseph’s school in the morning where I was left alone with the 7th grade. Unfortunately enough were they really not that good at listening and were more interested in talking with each other, but luckily came another teacher who helped me to make sure that they would pay attention to me. After lunch went me and Arokiaraj to Mamalaparam. The city was very nice with a great beach, lots of nice restaurants and amazing stone constructions.  We also went to visit Geeta and her store, which is one of J.R.D.T’s projects together with A.S.B. SISTER. The store was very nice and Geeta nicely enough made some really good and tasty fish for us which we very much enjoyed.



Children at St. Joseph´s school



Me and Geeta at her store



Fish that Geeta made for us (everywhere we go we always get fish)

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On Tuesday went I like normally to St. Joseph’s school. This day I taught the children was paying better attention and as a reward I taught them some songs which was very much appreciated. Today they also had a small English test at which I helped out. In the evening the children from the orphanage came and had some tutoring with Anita, Arokiaraj’s wife. Since I do not speak their language I cannot help them with their homework except for English, so it’s very nice of Anita to help them with their homework. 



St. Joseph´s school



St. Joseph´s school

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Wednesday was my last at St. Joseph’s school and to make the day a little more special I borrowed a sari from Anita and wore for school. The children appreciated it very much and they all said I looked beautiful. Normally for teachers at this school is it compulsory to wear saris, but since I am only a volunteer I got an exception. In the evening I was invited to the birthday party of one of the teacher’s daughter. The daughter was turning one and the birthday party was great, with really good food and cake and I had a great time. 




Me wearing Anita´s Sari



Me, the teacher Roseline, her husband and their daugther, the birthdaygirl, Moshika.


Me, Moshika in the birthdaygift I gave her and Moshika´s cousin.
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The next day me and Arokiaraj went up early and travelled to Pondicherry to attend a wedding of one of his friends. The weeding was beautiful and since it was Christian it had a lot of similarities to a Swedish one but also some small differences. In the evening was the beginning of the festival of celebrating “Our lady of good health”. The celebrations were really nice with children singing and more. Unfortunately it got a quick end due to heavy rain.




Outside the church



The wedding couple with family


A very nice wedding dinner


Celebrating "Our lady of good health"

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It has now come to my last day here at J.R.D.T., I will today leave for Bangalore and then go back to Sweden from there tomorrow. These three weeks have been great and I have had a really good time here at J.R.D.T. I have learned a lot about Indian culture and way of living, made new great friends, seen extraordinary places and also had a lot of really good food. I wish I was able to stay for longer but I have to go back Sweden for studies. But I assure you that I will come back to visit! Thank you so very much for everything!  



Alfred playing together with his grandpa with toy animals that I gave him.

Geeta’s store


In December 2011 we helped the young and disabled woman Geeta to open her very own store. She lives in Mamalapuram and because of her disability is it hard for her to do any kind normal work and therefore was earning for her living something not very easy. So we at J.R.D.T. with support from A.S.B. SISTER helped her to start her very own store which she is now running all by herself and the store has been a total success in her neighborhood.

We recently went to visit her now eighth months after the opening to find out that she was very busy. A lot of school kids comes to her after school to buy snacks and candies and  also a lot of the nearby living men and women comes daily to buy biscuits, spices and what else that can needed. It was very nice to see how good the store was running and also to see how happy Geeta was to finally be earning her very owns money and that with such a success.

To celebrate her success and also to make sure of good sales even the future is A.S.B. going to support Geeta even further by giving her a refrigerator that she can have in her store. This will make it possible for Geeta to store more cold drinks, chocolates and more that are in need of cooling and expand her store even more. Geeta was very happy to hear the good news and sends a big thank you to SISTER A.S.B!



Geeta in her successful store. 



Our volunteer Elsa selling sweets.