Day 7 Asha Kisumpur Pahadi
This was the slum community we worked in with our first team from Yeovil, back in 2008. We were introduced to the Bal Mandal (Children's group) Some of the children could remember different members of the team that had been out 3 years ago, that was pretty impressive!
We remembered this young girl who had danced at the Inauguration, back in 2008, she beamed when we told her!
The Mahila Mandal (Ladie's group) came to meet us too, It was good to meet Sosheela again, the lady who makes the best chai! Sosheela is in the pink sari
It had been suggested that we hold a workshop with the college Students to encourage them in their studies, so we had a question and answer session about studying and preparing for exams. Each student introduced themselves and explained what courses they were on, at least two were about to take final exams! Asha will have its first graduates in a few months! They discussed what sort of jobs they were looking for: police, civil servants, teaching, accountancy were among the choices. These students have already come so far, when you consider that for some of them the lectures are also in English....
The boy front right is Sosheela's son.
Then we had some fun with them, they wanted to know about our jobs and families. Was Nigel and Sue's marriage a love marriage or an arranged marriage! That got us on the subject of arranged marriages which caused much animated conversation! They all seemed happy with the idea. although one lad didn't want his wife to have a job. They told us that they would have 1/2 an hour with a girl to decide whether they agreed with their parent's choice! We asked the girls what would be the most important question they would ask the boy? "Does he have a girlfriend?" came the quick reply. I don't remember the answer from the boys!
It was good to see their personalities coming through, you sometimes miss that when you come with a larger group.
This was the slum community we worked in with our first team from Yeovil, back in 2008. We were introduced to the Bal Mandal (Children's group) Some of the children could remember different members of the team that had been out 3 years ago, that was pretty impressive!
We remembered this young girl who had danced at the Inauguration, back in 2008, she beamed when we told her!
The Mahila Mandal (Ladie's group) came to meet us too, It was good to meet Sosheela again, the lady who makes the best chai! Sosheela is in the pink sari
It had been suggested that we hold a workshop with the college Students to encourage them in their studies, so we had a question and answer session about studying and preparing for exams. Each student introduced themselves and explained what courses they were on, at least two were about to take final exams! Asha will have its first graduates in a few months! They discussed what sort of jobs they were looking for: police, civil servants, teaching, accountancy were among the choices. These students have already come so far, when you consider that for some of them the lectures are also in English....
The boy front right is Sosheela's son.
Then we had some fun with them, they wanted to know about our jobs and families. Was Nigel and Sue's marriage a love marriage or an arranged marriage! That got us on the subject of arranged marriages which caused much animated conversation! They all seemed happy with the idea. although one lad didn't want his wife to have a job. They told us that they would have 1/2 an hour with a girl to decide whether they agreed with their parent's choice! We asked the girls what would be the most important question they would ask the boy? "Does he have a girlfriend?" came the quick reply. I don't remember the answer from the boys!
It was good to see their personalities coming through, you sometimes miss that when you come with a larger group.
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