Update From Kirsty Cunningham - January 2006

I'm going to the Sumaga Community Services Project in Baddegama, Sri Lanka. There are two centres where I work in during the day and in the evenings. Each day will start at 7 in the morning at the daycare centre with 2-8 year olds. There we will play number and alphabet games to help with their learning. At three o'clock when we finish we have dinner in the VTC centre, where girls aged 15-25 learn to cook our meals. In return we teach them English to help them better their lives when they leave the centre to get a job. One day a week we might sometimes get asked to help other teachers in the centre teach English at a tsunami camp for children. Although the tents they live in and are taught in are fairly basic, the children find them amazing.

The main village is only footsteps away from where we are and it is heartbreaking to see the pictures of where these people have to live in such extreme poverty. After seeing them it makes me realise that I could be making a slight difference for these girls and children when they grow up.

I'd like to say a huge thank you to all of Braeview for all the help and support you've given me and Sam to raise our funds. Since we are the first people to go with Link Overseas from Braeview we'll definitely come back in August to try and convince more people to go because it's an opportunity of a lifetime. Thank you again.

Kirsty x x x

Update from Kirsty Cunningham - June 2006

Well, as ever, I'm thoroughly enjoying my experience, I'm still glad I decided to do it! My Easter Holidays have been and gone - started on April 9th and ended 23rd of April.

We stuck to seeing the South Coast area for that time. So lots and lots of beautiful beaches. Started at Hikkaduwa which was good to just relax and sunbathe after so many weeks of teaching. Plus got to meet up with the rest of the volunteers to hear about their placements and all the places they had been.

On Tursday 11th April the girls at my Vocational Training Centre were having a New Year's Celebration Day before they went home to their families for the actual New Year. We decided to go back to Sumaga for that day, was so much fun! We played lots of games.

It's amazing now we have totally overcame a language barrier with the girls and now have a great relationship with them! Lovely girls.

We spent New Year in Unawatuna. Wow! Really nice because the Sri Lankan family's guest house we stayed at gave us lots of nice food, cakes, fruit and juice. Everyone so cheery and stuff on New Year. So I have celebrated two New Years in 2006!

Next destination was Ulavissa. This small, absolutely gorgeous, beach was hard to believe. All the things that had washed away in the Tsunami, totally bounced back! The people there were so laid back and friendly, had a nice time.

Every month there's a holiday on the Paya (full moon) and this month was Vesak Paya, a big holiday where Buddha had been born, enlightened and died on the same date through his life. The Sinhala Buddhists cover the country in blues, yellows, oranges, whites and reds like the Buddhist flag.

Had a really sad time at Tsunami camp, one of the girls, Iveasha's grandmother, was telling Fiona and I how sad her life is and that she wishes she'd gone with the tsunami. So sad that because she is stuck in a tent that rest of her life now she is too old to get a job. Poor thing.

Love Kirsty x x

Kirsty and Sam are now back from their travels and have been into school to share their experiences (and photos!) with staff and pupils. Laura Fullerton travelled to India in 2007 with Link Overseas to work with young people. Laura also kept us up to date with her experiences .

Email from Laura December 2007

Hi! I'm getting on really well here, I love it and don't want to come back! I get home on the 2nd February so I've still got just under two months left.
Christmas here is not like home at all! There's no decorations or anything around and it doesn't feel like December! I think all the volunteers at the house are just going out for a meal though. There's a place where they serve every western Christmas food so it should be good. I've also got a nativity play at the orphanage (I'm Joseph!) though I'm not sure if that's on Christmas Day or not, either way I'll pop in there to see the kids too.
It's getting quite cold here as well. I've started wearing jumpers in the mornings, though by 11am it's roasting again. Then it's freezing at night!

Another Email from Laura 10 December 2007

Well, my rountine each day (Mon - Fri) starts with going to an orphanage at 9am and helping the kids get ready for school. Sometimes we do exercises and songs with the kids (right now we're teaching them Jingle Bells for their Christmas show) then get them to school for 10am. The orphanage also doubles as an elderly women's home so if there's no creche children or sick kids then I go talk to the women (or more accurately, I listen as they don't speak English and my Hindi isn't up to scratch!). Sometimes I paint their nails or do simple exercises with them too.
 
After that, at around 11am we go over to a school called Epiphany High and take English classes or help with admin stuff (right now we're helping them with their Christmas Gathering, so we take the kids doing a skit or speeches and help with thier pronunciation. We also designed the invitations, even though they didn't use our design - a complete waste of a day for us!). We also sometimes take the young kids class before 12 and do action songs with them (they love the Hokey Kokey!)
 
We stay at the school until 3.30pm then my partner Sophie goes back to the orphanage and I go to the girls' hostel next door and chat with them for a while. Again, here I'm helping with Christmas stuff right now. I just got back from there actually and today we were making cards and the girls completely tore apart my art stuff! I don't even think I've got a full pack of pencils left!
I'm also (trying to, anyway) teach them a Christmas song for their Gathering so it's pretty busy right now for us!
 
Next week is all of St Mary's Gatherings, so every day we've got somewhere to be! I've especially bought a new saree for next week too, as I only had one before and have worn it about 5 times to different events at the same place!
 
I'm in Pune, which is where Sam was. She volunteered at Deep Griha, which is linked with St.Mary's (my placement) and the owners of the house where we all stay are Deep Griha's founders.
 
I travelled for three weeks in November and I loved it! We went up North and saw the Himalayas and the Taj Mahal and went on a camel safari and slept in the desert for a night!