Ramavaram Trip, March 8, 2009

Today we had a wonderful trip to Ramavaram that most of us have agreed was quite productive and a great kickstart to this year’s work. Six of us were there, one of whom was Saikiran, who was there for the first time. We decided to hold a small meeting with some of the community elders, including Ponnuswamy, Pitchaimani, and Santhanam, and along the course of the meeting many other individuals joined us.

The topics discussed were our plans for them, what they would like from us, and how to execute all of these plans. We explained that our main goals for them are:

1. children’s education, both formal and informal
2. the general health and well-being of the entire community, and
3. ensuring that everyone is employed and can take care of themselves.

They were happy with the goals that we have set and expressed their enthusiasm and agreement.

The first change that we are making is that we will be starting a weekly educational program for the children. We have instated a lesson planning committee that is in charge of detailing the curriculum, headed by Bhavya Krishna. She will need help and those of you who are abroad and would like to help in some way with Sangam India work can certainly contact us to get involved with this. The goal is to make learning fun for the children and to encourage them to think big and set and reach ambitious goals.

They have also asked us to help them in rebuilding two bridges which collapsed in the recent flooding. We will further discuss the best way to go about this in a way that does not go against our policy of engendering an independent, self-sufficient way of living.

We were very happy to hear that two Sisters from the nearby St. Thomas Mount Church have volunteered their services to teach the preschool age children everyday in a daycare type format if the community can build them a small Balwadi. We are hoping to get involved in this project so that we can also use the space on the weekends for our programs. We will of course share any updates we get on the subject.

We also discussed vocational training and the general occupational status of the community members. Many individuals, especially women, have expressed their interest in being trained in some vocation and in receiving some assistance in finding jobs. This is still a project in progress, as our search for local vocational training institutes continues.

We were approached by several people who had medical complaints, whom we briefly evaluated and advised to visit the hospital outpatient department.

We will be visiting about ten houses every week to evaluate their status, needs, and management plans. This will start from this weekend’s visit.

Overall, we are very happy with our progress today. We all felt an overwhelming sense of goodwill and friendship that we hope will continue as we follow through with these ideas and plans that we’ve started out with. We would like to thank Vandhana, Sivaprakash and especially Saikiran, who jumped right in even though it was his first time at Ramavaram, for helping us immensely by assisting us in overcoming our language barrier.