In 2007 and 2009 I travelled to India with my friend Chris to volunteer as an english teacher at this girls school and hostel in Tamil Nadu. (The school is managed by ODAM and receives part government funding for students up to 8th standard). We fell in love with these beautiful girls and made a commitment to continue to support the school as we could. Since 2007 Chris and I have hostel an annual fund raising event, either an Indian dinner or Indian Movies to raise enough money to fund the girls school uniforms and other necessary school items.Next week Chris is off to school again, this time without me and with a new recruit. It's both sad and exciting for me to help them in their preparations. I'm really excited that Chris is able to go again and Lin wants to go also. I'm sad that I wont be there with them.
So this week we held our annual event, and so far we've raised the same amount of money we did last year. This year our money will be going to fund the purchase of bunks and mattresses for the older girls who have for the past 5 years been sleeping on the floor.
We had 75 people come to see Monsoon Wedding in a local art house theatre where we could start the evening with Indian nibbles, make a small presentation about our school and draw our raffle before the movie started.
Monsoon Wedding was a fantastic movie, with all the colour of Indian Weddings, and three (maybe more) love stories being threaded together. The arranged marriage of a fathers only daughter brings him untold amount of stress, however his love for his daughter and her orhpaned cousin is just beautifully portrayed. The Bride coming to terms with changes in her life realises her soon to be husband is the right man for her. And the wedding decorator discovers his own love for the family's servant as the chaos of the wedding unfolds.
You too can donate to ODAM here.....
3 comments:
I'm so glad that the movie night went well. I'm feeling sad that you aren't travelling to India with Chris on this trip to - just think of it as saving up energy and spirit to take on your next journey over there xox
Thanks for this link. We've just come back from India and I feel compelled to pick some charities to contribute to. :-) Any others you could recommend that you've heard of would be much appreciated x
I don't know this movie but it sounds wonderful and I'm so glad it was a success! It looks beautiful -- so colorful. My father served in India in the war (I did a blog post about it long ago) and it's a culture that has always intrigued me, I suppose, in part, because of that. Congratulations on a successful event!
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