The power of friendships that inspire – Rotary District 9700 adopts Mitrataa!

We are so excited to be working with Rotary District 9700 – South Western New South Wales, Australia. This RAWCS project, driven by Bathurst Daybreak and Orange Daybreak Clubs, has already made a substantial different for our work at Bal Mandir Naxal Children's Home and this is just the beginning!

Gaye, Irene, John and Dave with Rachana

In January, a team visited us with fantastic results. After 2 weeks with us, they had:

• Given the babies’ room a complete overhaul with a fresh coat of paint, new mobiles for all the kids, a good scrubbing down of all the cots, new hot water heaters for the mothers and a great dose of love for everyone involved. Thanks heaps especially to Sylvia, Niamh, Ann, Irene, Judy and Gaye for their wonderful support here.




Irene and Gaye with the happy mothers and babies in their newly painted room!

• Installed an inverter into the computer room and donated (and set up) 4 laptops for the kids to use. Thanks heaps to Dave, John and Graham for this.

• Fixed a lot of the lights and other electrical issues in a number of the kids’ rooms. Thanks heaps, John and Dave!
• Run first aid training for the mothers and a group of the older girls. Thanks, Sylvia!
• Run a painting workshop for our toddlers – we discovered a couple of Picassos in the making! Thanks heaps, Jane and Judy and everyone who helped with this.
• Kicked off some renovations to fix our front gate, and 2 of our staircases.
• Donated some bags for the kids to use for school bags and for basketball gear.
• Donated some lanyards which will shortly be used for our new Visitor Passes.
• Visited our model school in preparation for the April teacher training team. Thanks, Judy and Graham.
• Visited Bhaktapur Rotary Club to discuss future support – Bhaktapur Rotary, supported by Rabindra Puri, is the local Rotary connection.
• And scoped a number of other projects for support moving forward.

Sylvia bandages up Asha in First Aid Class

I am exhausted just thinking about all that they did! Thanks so much to the amazing team who dedicated their energy to working with us. It was fantastic. Thanks especially to Graham Tyson for driving this project and organising everything.

 

Now we are madly preparing for the next wonderful group to arrive on Saturday. There will be 3 teams:

• A teacher training team who will be working with our Riviera, model school, teachers and a group of teachers from the village and a team who will be also working with our toddlers teachers at Bal Mandir;
• A health team who will be working on dental and mental health issues at Bal Mandir; and
• A maintenance team who will be working on the bunks and cots at Bal Mandir to help us say goodbye to bed bugs once and for all!

Thanks to Mary Brell who has helped put together this fantastic team. We are excited about what they are going to achieve.

Jane mentors our future Picassos!

This partnership is a perfect example of how a really mutual, focused partnership can work and we love working with the Rotary team! Thanks heaps, guys. You all get the Hero of the Day Award!