Fr Joseph returns to sunshine

d4b26879-3eef-4298-89e1-03284891c509Fr Joseph, who is the CEO of our partner organisation in India has been in Ireland for the last few weeks. He has been very busy every day meeting sponsors in Dublin and Cork.

Joe has been in charge in India for about 10 years and during that time he has implemented many unique changes.  We are the only charity in the world where every one of our sponsored children has their own bank account. The child’s mother manages this account. This gives her a great sense of status and pride. Dalit women do not normally own a bank account.  He has successfully implemented a micro-finance programme where since 2012, 850 mothers have benefited and are now the proud owners of a cow or a sewing machine or some other assets which they use to earn an income. He also implemented third level education loan program. Already 250 children are benefiting from that.

None of this would be possible without the support of our hundreds of sponsors who pay by standing order or direct debit every month.   Remember €1 is a days wages for the mothers we serve.    We have also had some very kind and generous donors whose donations have enabled us to build a rural development centre which will ensure that our partner in India, Child Aid Trust.

Father Joseph received many donations while he was here and all of that money will be invested in our various programmes in India.

Fred Crowe

Fundraiser in Arklow 

Today the 31st May 2015 the On your Bike” in Arklow, enjoyed a sunny day and over 150 participated.             

Rural Development Centre – first sod is turned

Yesterday Friday the 13th May 2015 the ceremony was held for the starting of the building and the laying of the foundation stone. This foundation stone was blessed by Nandri President and Director Fr Michael Murtagh in Ireland and personally delivered to India.

Before the building constructio commences a Bhoomi Pujan ceremony is carried out. According to Hindu culture, the earth is considered to be a mother. Bhoomi is the Hindu goddess Mother Earth. Before the start of construction, usually a Bhoomi Pooja is performed. This is to ask permission from Bhoomi Deva, and to get her good will and assistance. It also is to ask forgiveness for the disruption of the many living beings already on and in the land. 

This building will provide administration and training and support facilities for our 2000 mainly dalit families. Once the building is completed in January 2016 we would hope to expand and grow the number of mainly families to double that number.  
           

Nandri ensures a student nurse completes her education

Antoni (not her real name) has been living in an orphanage since she was four years of age. Her uncle paid her fees to go to nursing college for the first year. Three months after the start of the second year it transpired that he was not interested or not in a position to pay for the second year’s fees so she was evicted from the college.

In February 2014 we met her and agreed to give her Rs.25,000 (€350) for her 2nd years fees and the orphanage agreed to pay her accommodation fees. We thought she could get some kind of bank loan but evidently the banks will only give a loan if the student applies in the first year. Sounds a bit silly but that’s the way it is.

We have have to repeat the loan for the third year and we will have to give her a loan for the fourth year as well.

Most of our third level education micro finance loans will be partially repaid from the date the child starts college. In fact the repayments are generally currently enough to cover a full years  years loans.

Most of our loans are for Rs.10,000 per annum. The loans to the student nurse are unique but makes the difference between her finishing her nursing education and not doing so. And eventually when she repays us the money can be used to finance another nurse or engineer or whatever

Fred Crowe

CEO

 

Successful mothers conference 2015

 

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mothers marching to conference
mothers marching to conference

Our mothers conference on Sunday was a great success. Over 2000 mothers turned up and marched about a kilometre from one school to another. Originally we had intended to have about 1500 of our sponsored children but the mother’s indicated they would prefer to have a day out without the kids 🙂 . I suppose mothers are the same everywhere.

Sunday was also national voters day and we used this to raise the profile of our partner here and I believe we were featured on the local News channels.

In December I was contacted by Sigurdur, a retired video producer from Iceland and he offered to produce a short video for promotional use by Nandri. He videoed a lot of the march and the subsequent conference which we hope to edit over the next few weeks so that you can see the highlights. Today he spent shooting what will be a five minute video about the impact which we have had on one family. It really illustrates how all of our programs integrate for the benefit of the children and mothers in our various programs.

I will tell you more about this in a separate blog

Mothers conference is on tomorrow.

Michael Sweeney my fellow director and I arrived in India today Saturday. We initially flew to Dubai which is an eight hour flight and then we flew from Dubai to Chennai where we were picked up. It is about three hour drive to Vellore where we will be based for the next 6 days.

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This is a photograph of a street banner advertising our mothers conference which is on Sunday, 25 January. 2000 mothers will attend.

It does serve to publicise our local partner Child Aid Trust and the work that it is doing. I believe the other two in the photographs are local dignitaries and being associated with them also is beneficial to Child Aid Trust.

Jeremy O’Beirne

IMG_6164-0.JPGI want to say a big thank you very much to Irish chartered accountant Jeremy O’Beirne. He is just finishing three months volunteering with Nandri partners in India, Child Aid Trust . He has made a great contribution to improving the accounting and systems there. He offered valuable training and experience to the accounting staff. Working in rural India means electricity going down during the day. The backup power supply kicks in but it can be frustrating. The temperature and humidity would have been difficult but at least he was there during a time of year which would not have been the hottest. There is not a lot to do in rural India where 99% of the locals don’t speak English. It gets dark at 6 o’clock every evening, no internet, not too many television channels. This time next year we hope to have our Rural Development Centre with accommodation for volunteers. We would hope to entice volunteers with different professional qualifications and experience to bring to our work in India. The photograph above is the house that Jeremy was staying in. Unfortunately the car was not his. I wouldn’t advise anyone to drive in India. Well done and thank you to Jeremy

Fund Raiser in Perth Australia

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Well done to Caoilfhionn Crowe and her friends who held a fundraiser with an Indian theme for the night. Caoilfhionn had brought back from India a dozen saris, one for each of her friends.

They raised enough money to provide a family income generation loan to 5 families. The families will be presented with a cheque by Caoilfhionn in India on Sunday, 25 January.

They will probably use the money to buy a cow which will provide the family with nutrition and milk and enough money to repay the loan over 20 months. At that point a second family will benefit from the money which was raised.

Well done to all concerned

India here I come – again

On 23rd January I am heading to India again. Traditionally we make one visit to India each year as technology means that we can talk and communicate every day and it is not necessary to actually go there more often. 

In October last year I went there to review a number of different pieces of land and look at prices of land generally. I ended up recommending the purchase of 2 acres of land which is within walking distance of our Nandri Farm and Agriculture Training Centre which we acquired on a ten year lease a year ago.

Over the last few months we have been developing with a local architect plans for the building of a Rural Development Centre. This will provide office accommodation, a reception area large enough to meet and talk to up to 30 mothers every day who may have questions about the various programmes in which they are involved. It will have a number of training rooms and accommodation for volunteers. There will be cooking facilities for up to 200. 

On this trip in January we hope to meet a number of builders and obtain quotations so that we can start building in February 2015. In India, at least in our part of India, you buy the land and then submit plans to the local mayor who will give you planning permission. It sounds a bit risky but that’s the way it works and obviously we discussed with the local mayor what we had in mind for the land. In a twist that sounds a bit Irish the same mayor was also acting for the seller of the land as an agent. 

Happy Christmas from 2000 families

IMG_5951Just before Christmas we received a box of over 1000 Christmas cards from India. it’s a huge logistical job for our partner in India because the children attend over 200 different schools as far apart as Dundalk to Cork (200 miles).  And it takes twice as long in India to travel the same distance.

Our field workers (Staff members who attend all of our mothers meetings) had to find each child either in school or at home, ask the child to write a  short note to their sponsor or ask the very young children to make a little drawing.
The cards were then taken back to our office in India and because 90% of the children don’t speak English their note had to be translated from Tamil.
Once the cards were completed they were scanned and then added to our computerized child sponsorship management system. Each of our sponsors can now see their Christmas card and other information about their child including photograph or school exam record.
The online access we give our sponsors to information about their sponsored children is quite unique either among Irish or international charities. It is also very cost-effective for us. But we do know that many sponsors don’t have regular or any access to computers and we all know it’s nice to receive something personal in the post.  All cards were mailed before Christmas.
In the meantime you can access the card online if you are a sponsor .
Another part of our child sponsorship system is unique internationally. Each child has their own bank account and the sponsorship money is transferred into that account. The mother has the passbook and each mother feels a great sense of pride going to the bank to take out money which has been lodged into the account. These low caste Dalit women would not normally be allowed into a bank.  We are also encouraging them to save and this is happening.
Over 700 of our mothers now have their own “business” which is changing their family’s lives forever. Through our micro finance income generation program we have given them a loan to buy a cow or a sewing machine. Within a few years they will be earning so much money they won’t need the child sponsorship and this will be passed on to another family to start the cycle again.
So thank you to our dedicated staff in India who worked very hard to get the thousand Christmas cards.
More than anything thank you to our many sponsors and donors without whom we wouldn’t be able to change the lives of what is now almost 2000 impoverished families in India.
Fred Crowe
CEO