first aid workshops.

One of our current interns from Germany, Rike, is a trained First Aid instructor and expressed interest in doing a First Aid workshop with the boys at the Boys' Home. She researched various scenarios and decided to focus her workshop on scratches, cuts, and burns, three things all of the boys have some experience with. We broke the workshop down into 4 days, working with 10-12 boys each day, and taught them the proper ways to react to each scenario, including dispelling numerous stereotypes that they had been taught when they were younger. Through a series of plays (I got to show off my acting chops; watch for me on the award show circuit next year), we showed the boys different ways they can get injured, and Rike showed them how to apply bandages, get people into the recovery position, and call an ambulance to the scene, after which Dorothy, Maruthi, or Prabhu patiently translated the commentary into numerous local languages to ensure comprehension on the part of the boys. Overall the workshops were a great success on a topic we hadn't before broached in the Boys' Home, and Rike is discussing with Prabhu the prospect of including it in the schools program as well. I only wish we had been able to get some pictures, but it's always tough to take them inside the Boys' Home without getting caught by the staff. You'll just have to use your imagination to picture me pretending to burn myself while lighting an imaginary cigarette :)

ug fundraisers.

In addition to the Bake Sale, we also held a party at the Peace Child office to raise money for the UG. Guests ate, drank, and danced the night away, and were already asking when the next party is before they were out the door. Hopefully our next one will be even bigger and better! Here are a few pictures from the Bake Sale and the party:

weaving a web of change.

United Games of Nations is a youth-led youth exchange with partnerships is Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Germany, Czech Republic and India. Each country hosts a "Games" either annually or bi-annually where delegates from member countries participate in action projects and learn about the culture of the host country.

This year UG India's 3 focus topics are Child Rights, Sustainability, and Gender Equality, all on the them of "Weaving a Web of Change". The first two topics will be focused on at the Government Children's Home for Boys where delegates and local volunteers will prepare skits along with the children which broach both subjects. For the third, Gender Equality, we are preparing a sort of scavenger hunt along the streets of Bangalore to observe the differences in gender equality in the various social classes.

To host this year's Games we have begun our fundraising efforts with a bang! Yesterday we held a bake sale on Residency Road and had a fantastic turnout. What began as a small effort ended up exceeding our expectations. Thanks to generous donations from various family and friends, we had an amazing smorgasboard on hand: brownies, chocolate cakes, cookie cake, cupcakes, banana bread, peanut butter cookies...and those were just the desserts! We also had freshly made Belgian waffles, sarpotel and buns, veg and non-veg momos, veg cutlets, and pav bhaji. Thanks to the efforts of some of our UG members and other local volunteers, word spread along Residency and Brigade Roads, and we stayed busy throughout the evening. We even had one fan who went home and called a local news channel who sent their television crew! So some of us may have even ended up on the news! All in all, it was a great kickoff to preparing for this year's United Games. (pictures to come soon of all the goodies we had on hand)

We have many more exciting fundraisers planned for the coming weeks, so keep checking back to see what we have been doing. And if you are in the Bangalore area, we hope you can join us for the fundraisers and for the United Games in October!

kiddie school.

In addition to the Boys' Home and the government school project, we are also continuing the Kiddie School. For those of you who are new to Peace Child India, the Kiddie School is a makeshift school we created 4 years ago for the children of the migrant workers in the area surrounding our office/residence. Because the families work primarily in construction, they move around depending on where the work is, meaning that the children usually do not stay in one place long enough to attend school. However, because our area has been developing at a steady rate in recent years, many of the families have set up homes but are still not sending their children to proper school. Since the inception of the Kiddie School, it has been run primarily by interns, with assistance from Maruthi. In February of this year, we had two interns take over the running of the Kiddie School with great success (thank you, Olivia and Meije!), but since they've gone, we haven't had anyone interested in it, so Maruthi has been running the school every Friday for 2 hours. We realised there is only so much we can do at the Kiddie School with just one facilitator and children of such varied ages. The older children especially need a more structured education, so we have been working on identifying the ones who have the motivation and the potential and have been sponsoring their formal education (paying for books, bags, uniforms, stationery, etc). As of now we have enrolled 2 boys - Harisha and Karthik - in school, so our next focus is to get the parents to send their girl children to school as well. Many of the families wish for the girls to stay home and help with the everyday running of the house, but because one of the pillars of our organisation is the empowerment of females, we have told the families that we will only continue to support more children if they begin sending their daughters to school as well. We have many local volunteers who have expressed interest in sponsoring a child's education, so we are using their support and will hopefully have 2 girls enrolled in school in the coming months.

Thank you to all of you for your continued support of all our projects, and we hope you are enjoying hearing about all that we are doing.

Amaidhi Devaraj
Director
Peace Child India

welcome.

Welcome to Peace Child India's blog! We are hoping this will be an easy way for all of you to stay updated on our projects, but also as a way for current interns to post quick thoughts about their experiences with Peace Child.

Currently we are still going strong with our projects in the Boys' Home and in the government schools. We have 5 interns at the moment -- Lisa, Keir, Harriet and Jess from the UK, and Nick, who is the lone US representative. They've all been working hard on lessons for both projects. In the schools they are taking lessons from the children's textbooks and working on comprehension for the students' final exams. At the Boys' Home we've been doing a lot of craft projects; our most successful one recently has been the completion of a jigsaw depicting the solar system which is now proudly displayed on the wall.

We also recently had a group here for 2 weeks from Harris Academy Crystal Palace in London. They replaced a cement floor, painted a wall, and did some gardening at the Muthrayanagar School where all 3 Harris groups have been working. Upon completion of their hard work we traveled to Mysore and Coorg, where we had fun battling the leeches and playing in the waterfall at Honey Valley.




We have a few upcoming projects which we are excited about. We are hoping to provide all the boys at the Boys' Home with lockers for them to store their clothes and other belongings, and we are also looking into providing the boys who attend outside school with cycles. There are a few donors who are helping sponsor these projects, and as soon as we get them off the ground we will send updates (and hopefully some pictures!).

Hopefully soon I can sweet-talk one of the interns into writing a post about their time here. Take care until then.