Melting in Chennai

36 degrees and very humid - not good conditions for an English rose!

We arrived in Chennai yesterday afternoon and checked in to our hotel. The hotel is very nice but is across the road from the main river running through Chennai which is horribly polluted and very smelly. Needless to say we are not heading out for walks along the river banks.

There are always a few surprises on these trips and this morning we expected to be spending in the office with our local partners Oasis going through budgets and plans for the coming year. Arriving at the office after a rather hairy drive through the chaos that is Chennai we had a quick chat and were told that we were invited to the opening of a Skill Centre close to the slums in Kanigapurum. This is an area we have visited on many occasions as it is one of the centres for the Sports and Education programme being supported by Rianna's Fund. We can never remember the name of this area, we refer to it as the slum next to the REALLY stinky river (see picture).

The Skill Centre is a partnership between Oasis and Blue Dart (DHL in India) and is for older children (14 - 16) from very poor slum families who have not completed their education.

The centre takes in two groups of 25 at a time and teaches them English and IT, essential skills if

they are to get work in any of the offices in this City - known as the IT capital of India. The new IT training

room was opened by the local Councillor and head of Police, and this was followed by some very long speeches. The English teaching class is not yet finished and Terry took the opportunity to give the workmen some painting tips!

The heat today was unbearable and we were pleased of the

chance to head back to the hotel for a cold shower before we were back in the car and off to meet with Steria.

Rianna's Fund first hooked up with Steria in India after being introduced by Daryl Young, an Ashtead resident. Daryl has worked for Steria in the UK for many years and when he heard we were coming to India to look at projects he introduced us to Steria's award winning Corporate Social Responsibility team. Through them we were told about Annai Fathima Children's Home in Chennai which has been running for 30 years but has had big problems with their funding. From the first time we visited and met the 160 orphans who live here we

were enchanted by these happy souls who lived in such poor conditions. With Steria's help we identified that the greatest need here was for proper sanitation (the sewer pipes were broken and leaking), new toilets and wash area, levelling of the ground on the site to avoid stagnant pools of water and rain water collection to take that water off the site.

The work at Annai Fathima started in 2010 and was completed earlier this year. We had seen pictures but were very excited about coming back to the Home and seeing the difference this has made to the children's lives.

After a meeting at Steria's office to review the plans of the work and discuss any snagging we were back in the car and heading off to Annai Fathima. Today is a national holiday as it is the Telegu New Year so we arrived to find the children enjoying a day off school and very excited about our visit.

We drove up the wonderful new driveway and were then shown around the site to see all areas of completed work. The last time we were here we were trying to avoid the pools of stagnant water, the smell was dreadful, there were flies everywhere and frogs jumping all over the site. The difference was amazing and the children kept running up to us saying "thank you". We enjoyed some time with the children and caught up with Mrs Rani Krishna who runs the home and is mother to all of these delightful children.