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Shanti Nivas
Brighter Future International Trust is delighted to announce
that we have been chosen to receive the proceeds of a football
match - a very special match, which takes place every year,
to remember a very special person, the Reverend Ian Thompson.
Ian intended to become a missionary but he started giving
talks on the radio and decided that he would like to be
a chaplain in the Royal Navy. For 16 years he and his wife,
Paddy, travelled the world as a roving missionaries. They
loved meeting and helping people, he loved sport and he
loved his wife and four children.
After retiring from theRoyal Navy he became a teacher at
Shapwick school where Maggie - still lovingly remembered
as Maggie Auntie - our first volunteer, works. It is Ian's
son Alistair who organises the football match in memory
of his father. The 30 players come from all over the world
to celebrate Ian’s life and combine this with raising
funds for charities. The funds have benefited many charities
and include adopting and supporting villages in Indonesia
and Thailand.
The children
and staff of Shapwick and Eddington schools bought Brighter
Future its first vehicle in 2007 and this year, Maggie and
the
schoolchildren and The Ian Thompson Memorial Trust have
given us a replacement, so that we can take the children
to their hospital
appointments, transport supplies to the Homes and to our
other projects. Every week a group of children go to the
Shanti Nivas site.
Now Brighter Future is to receive funds raised through the
Ian Thompson Memorial Football Match towards the new Shanti
Nivas Home and Hospice for HIV infected orphans. Ian’s
son, Alistair, has also offered to match these funds with
a matching grant from his own charity called the Maitri
Trust.
The new Home and Hospice is to be built near the village
of Gotlam, half way between our Prem Nivas Home and the
Rainbow Children’s home in Vizianagaram. One of the
buildings will be named after Ian Thompson.
This week electricity poles arrived by bullock carts and
are being planted and strung up with wire.
The trees and plants are being watered
and cared for by our gardener cum watchman. He has a TV
in his hut to while away the hours between his gardening
and watering jobs.Solar panels have also been fixed to roof
provide power for the TV and fan for the watchman when the
power is cut off for several hours a day.
Brighter
Future’s reputation is spreading far and wide
Brighter Future was awarded a trophy and certificate for
being the best NGO in the district of Vizianagaram.
Our reputation has now reached Australia.
Emma Guest came to Vizianagaram as a volunteer in 2009,
with fellow students Helen and Sophie from Manchester Metropolitan
University.We have just heard from Emma in Australia and
she is asking for details of children who have no sponsors,
so we are hoping that there will soon be some Australian
Aunties and Uncles for the children.
We are very lucky that the majority of our volunteers go
on to sponsor a child. They have played and worked with
the children and have seen first-hand how we care for them,
how our homes are run and how happy the children are. Some
students even manage to persuade their parents to take over
the sponsorship until they graduate.
These students are also very good at supporting us by fundraising
on special days like World Leprosy Day and HIV/AIDS day.
The London Run has benefited from a regular contingent of
these young ladies.
Juliet is our current volunteer and is
actively working with the children, teaching English at
Prem Nivas and at DMC House and also in the local school
which many of our children attend. Juliet has been helping
with the Self Help Grants and visiting the colonies where
we built new houses for leprosy patients.
Juliet is a journalist and is reading for
a degree. She has offered to write an article in the Deccan
Chronicle and one about Shanti Nivas when Juliet has also
been planting trees and helping with the watering at the
new Shanti Nivas site. Between times she takes the children
to what the children call the 'Toy’s room'. This is
the room where construction toys, board games, educational
toys and others are kept.
Juliet will be greatly missed when she leaves her base at
DMC House in September to return to the UK.
Karuna Nivas Home for HIV+
Orphans
Our on-going survey of villages in the
more remote areas of Srikakulam District has found more
orphan children and part orphans who would benefit from
being in residential care. Some of the children are often
ill with the side effects of HIV infection but not yet weak
enough to qualify for anti-retroviral therapy which starts
when their immune system decreases to a blood count of Cd4
cells below 350. Some were living
in very poor sanitary conditions, villages with open sewers
that in this monsoon season are over flowing, so thatt he
children are continually suffering from diarrhoea. Others
have relatives, often a grandparent, who simply cannot afford
to feed and nurse them. One little girl has
TB. We now have 20 children living at Karuna Nivas (House
of Compassion).
We are also trying to extend the accommodation, buy a pump
for the bore-well and make permanent repairs to the roof.
And finally
...........
PS from Manya
I will start my journey to India on Bank Holiday Monday.
This time I am going via Qatar, in the Gulf States, to save
my back, and my legs, from a long non-stop journey! The
overall flying time is longer but it gets me to Delhi at
a better time to connect with my domestic flight. I will
be visiting a sick friend in North India before going to
Brighter Future in Andhra Pradesh.
The next newsletter may be a little late as the nearest
internet shop is a good 2km walk away and I will have to
take the chance that there isn’t a power cut when
I get there! Electricity gets cut off at different times
in a two week cycle. It is often on in the evening but then
the shop is full of young lads, networking and looking at
girlie photos, and not a seat available for an old granny.
Read
previous newsletters
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How
did we do in
August 2011?
Donations and events
Sarah’s crafts £150
Ann’s singing £40
Bruna £10
LH £50
GG £25
Birthdays
September and October
birthdays
Prem
Nivas children
Swathi 9
September
Jyothi 30 September
Rainbow children
Ramu and Laxman 1 September
Manohar 7 September
Anna kumara 7 September
Kavita 14 September
Samson 17 September
Jereena 19 September
Elisha 28 September
Daniel 29 September
Vamsi 11 October
Madhuri 16 October
Cards take about ten days
to reach India.
Please send birthday cards
and presents to
Brighter Future
Development Trust
PO Box 18
Plot 705 Vuda Layout Vizianagaram
Andhra Pradesh
India 535003
Donations
may be made to Brighter Future via internet, cheque or bank!
Brighter Future International
Trust
Sort code 30-90-28
Ac no. 3085385
or by Paypal and CAF on
our web site
www.brighterfuturetrust.com
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