Spring 2006 Project – Besso childrens home

Planning for the project began in November 2005. Students from Stanborough School, and independent school in Watford, Hertfordshire, submitted their applications to participate in the humanitarian trip to India, to decorate and conduct maintenance and improvements to the BESSO Children’s Home, and orphanage built by STOP in 2002 [link to Project 2002]. Meetings with parents and students to advise them on the project, travel plans and conditions were completed. Finally the departure day, February 12, 2006 arrived and all students and staff met at Stanborough School at 5 am for the journey to Heathrow Airport.

Four years of daily living by the 75 young active children living at the BESSO Children’s Home inflicted wear and tear on the living facility and the building required a much needed face lift both internally and externally.

The team got to work on Tuesday, the day after they arrived in the town of Hosur, Tamil Nadu, painting the girls dormitory, the kitchen, the boy’s dormitory, the Director’s office, the dining room and by Friday the large utility/storage room was painted too. By the end of the first week all the walls, doors and windows of the orphans’ accommodation was completed. Three of the more artistic members of the team went to work on painting beautiful cartoon characters to give the dorms a more homely look. In the second week the Director’s flat was painted and the team put up floor-to-ceiling shelves in the storeroom and had the toilet and bathroom doors repaired. The outside of the large orphanage building was painted by three hired labourers. Due to the high temperatures, in excess of 38°C, the team mainly worked indoors. When it cooled in the late afternoon, however, and when the children returned from school, everyone engaged in a game of cricket, with great enjoyment before returning home.

The daily routine was intense, starting off with a 6 am wakeup call, breakfast at 6:30, followed by a fifteen minute walk to the BESSO Orphanage. Work began soon immediately and continued until 5 pm and then a weary walk back to the campus where the team stayed for the two weeks. All of this helped to strengthen friendships and bond the team together to successfully accomplish the objective.

The team visited two other orphanages built by STOP International. On the last Friday the team spent the day with twenty-seven children aged 4 to 14 and staff of the Blessing Home and treated them to a picnic and games in the beautiful Nandi Hills, nearly 6000 ft above sea level, an event we take for granted but is a rare occurrence for these orphan children.

Is there a value of a trip such as this to the students and staff of Stanborough School? It does teach the students the value of community service through practical experience, which came across in the farewell speeches to the orphans. “This is the best experience I have had in my life,” said one. Another student commented that he now knows what his direction in life is – to be a humanitarian worker. Another promised to raise 10 sponsors to support the orphans when he got back to England. Everyone expressed a sincere desire to return to do more for children either in India or some other developing country.

Summer 2006 – Tamil Nardu orphanage

On July 21 2006 20 volunteers, 15 under the age of 24, from Wilmslow, Leamington and Watford, travelled to India for two weeks to build a boys dormitory for an Orphanage. Originally the orphanage was built in 2002 to accommodate 35 children and was now in desperate need of additional space due a combination of currently 70 children in residence and new laws passed in the state of Tamil Nadu requiring boys over the age of 10 and girls to have completely separate living arrangements. The volunteers raised their own fares – just over £8000 – to travel to Hosur, near Bangalore to build a dormitory for the boys of the BESSO orphanage. In addition to funding their own airfares, they also raised the £10,000 needed to build the dormitory. Having worked for months raising funds through sponsored 24 hour badminton, swimathons, sponsored bike rides, they arrived in Bangalore on a British Airways flight to begin the construction.

The work began the day after they arrived, piling bricks around the foundation which was prepared for the volunteers in advance by the local building contractor. Human brick chains made easy work of this piling. Then the mortar had to be mixed by hand in barrow-loads. Under the expert guidance of the local ‘bricky’ the team gingerly started laying bricks, however it wasn’t very long at all before the principle of laying bricks – Indian style – was mastered and the walls began to rise surprisingly quickly. By the end of the second day the building resembled more like something to live in. By the end of the first five days even the local contractor was amazed at the achievement. In spite of minor distractions such as heat, bugs, a cobra, the lovely orphan children and more heat, the work progressed steadily. The target was to build the walls up to first floor lintel height before returning home. The local contractor would then complete the two storey building. Not only did the team meet this target but in addition concreted the ground floor of the whole building within the deadline.

What motivated the team members (made up of school pupils, university students, doctors and a nurse, most of whom had never laid a brick in their life) to work tirelessly to meet the deadline? The unanimous response from them all was the “orphan children”. Their uninhibited expression of love and happiness in a deprived lifestyle squeezed the commitment out from within every individual in the team.

Summer 2006 – Madhakondapalli Village Love Home

In July 2006 13 volunteers from varied walks of life and backgrounds paid their cost of travel to India to begin work on a new dormitory at the Love home orphanage in Madhakondapalli Village, Tamil Nadu. STOP International established this home in 2004. With increasing numbers of children needing care, the home needed a new dormitory building to accommodate them.

The local building contractor, Solomon, and his team had completed the foundation of the building and the task for the volunteers from England was to build the walls to lintel height in the two weeks. The plan was that the contractor would finish the work by installing a roof that required the walls to “cure” for a few weeks beforehand. The volunteers made up of a retired doctor and his wife, university students, school students, one brick layer and teachers changed hats for the two weeks and turned into building site labourers. They mixed mortar by hand, carried bricks, erected bamboo scaffolding, emptied trailers of bricks and generally mucked in up to their elbows.

Before the mortar was mixed by hand, the coarse sand had to be sifted, dry mixed with cement and buckets of water added and then mixed using a back breaking technique with an Indian spade. The mortar was then carried in shallow metal bowls to supply the brickies as layer by layer of bricks were carefully but skilfully added. The walls went up quickly and looked sturdy and straight. By the end of the two weeks the target height was reached and the contractor was both surprised and impressed. He then set to work and cast the concrete roof, plastered, plumbed and painted the building to completion.

In February 2007 when a group of Stanborough School students and teachers travelled to India on another project, the completed building looked magnificent. It was dedicated and then opened by David Balderstone, a STOP International Trustee. The building now is part of the Love Home orphanage which cares for 17 children. Paul the Director and his wife Shiney are grateful for the new building which meets their present needs.