…Over the past three weeks, we’ve registered and vetted more than 150 children and their families, visited and evaluated 13 local schools, conducted a half dozen women empowerment seminars, organized and enabled an upcoming surgery for Prianka, prepared our students for their first final exams, and tried to win a $5,000 voting competition at http://www.volunteerhq.org/john-schupbach.html (which we are unfortunately currently losing by about 400 votes…please help!).
Here are some of my favorite photographs from the past few days:
–Students at a government school salute me upon entry to their classroom
–Sister Jaya Mary gives me a tour of St. Joseph’s Convent School’s new wing for 11th and 12th standards
–Kindergarten students at the Carmel Convent School line up for morning assembly
–A little boy shows us his ability to write the alphabet and numbers 1-10
–Mira, Bethea, and Faith register, evaluate, and photograph applicants
–Smoke from constantly burning rubbish engulfs the slum (It’s good for the lungs!)
–Ankit ensures that I take a moment of rest and enjoy a cold soda that Ajeet’s family bought me
–Instructions are written in Hindi with chalk on a wooden door in the slum. We rely on scattered literate parents to convey these messages by word of mouth. We can reach about 60% of the slum’s residents in 24 hours this way.
–A mother looks for her son’s name on a newly posted list of accepted students. He wasn’t on the list.
–A local social worker, Ranjan, reads a list of selected children to a group of illiterate mothers and grandmothers.
–A slum school teacher announces the same list
–Priti unfortunately had to be left behind
–Kanchan’s mother has had trouble sleeping all week waiting for our final decisions. Fortunately for her, Kanchan was accepted!
–Himanshu entering the Carmel Convent School for the first time with his mother, Sunita, who suffers from the effects of polio
–Mothers and their children listen intently to instructions from Mamta and the Sisters
–Arti, who now has a glass eye after suffering from eye cancer, is evaluated by Sister Pushpa
–Mothers and children listen to plans and expectations
–Tailors measuring the last of our 86 Carmel Convent School students
–Sindu, age 9, cooking a meal for her family
–Sindu on her way home after a final exam
–A boy bathing under cold water from a bucket
–Ajeet has never taken cricket lessons…but look at his eye-hand coordination!
–Girls attend their “Farewell,” the equivalent of our graduation, at a large government school
–A microphone and hundreds of young women await one of my speeches about the importance of higher and vocational education
–Students take part in a frog race on a school holiday
–Akanksha, our student being promoted to upper kindergarten this year, enjoying a game with her friends
–Prianka had a large abscess drained from her face this week. She is being treated with antibiotics. She will go home while her treatment continues and return to Delhi in 4 weeks for another surgery to remove residual tumor shown on a recent CT scan. Thanks Mom and Dad for funding Prianka’s care!
–Me with Sisters Jennifer and Jaya Mary
We’re working hard here…very hard. Please don’t forget to vote at http://www.volunteerhq.org/john-schupbach.html and have your friends and family vote too. If each person reading this blog voted, we would win!
More good news: If your fingers are tired like mine from typing johnschupbach.wordpress.com, worry no more. This blog can now be accessed by simply visiting http://johnschupbach.org!
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