Rianna's Fund

Sports and Education Project, Chennai

2011-04-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

Another hot and humid day in Chennai but we returned to the hotel room with a great feeling of satisfaction. Today we have met the most wonderful children who are overcoming adversity to dream some big dreams.

Rianna's Fund have been supporting the Sports and Education Project in Chennai and Bangalore for just over two years now. The projects works in five slum areas in Chennai and two in Bangalore and targets school drops outs in both cities. Slum children are bullied at school and find it impossible to keep up with work without electric lighting in their homes. They are often pushed in to menial jobs, begging or even litter picking. The aim is to find and engage with the drop outs and their families and encourage them back in to school. The carrot is the sports training programme which the children love and which gives them a sense of belonging and builds self esteem. The whole programme is rounded off with After School Clubs where they

are helped to keep up to date with their school work and where tutors can help them with subjects they find difficult. There is also training in life skills including health issues and some fun in the holidays with summer camps.

This is our fourth visit to the Chennai projects and so we can meet up with some of the children we have met before and find out about how well they are

now doing. The change is amazing.

Our day started in an area called SM Nagar. First we met Manimar whose progress we have been following over

the past two years. We heard that he is doing better at school and also involved in his local community Cricket team. His mother is a day labourer earning less than £1 per day and the family have other issues around poverty. Unfortunately Manimar is currently suffering from jaundice (a frequent problem for malnourished children) and so has had to take some time off school.

Our project partner has been working in SM Nagar for just over three years and so this is a well developed project. They have encouraged community involvement and are delighted that some of the parents have now become engaged and with help from the local Church they are now ready to take over the project themselves. Enabling communities to take ownership is the long term goal here, not easy when most of the parents are uneducated. SM Nagar is a great success story. Oasis will continue to monitor things and are able to drop in if help is needed.

Leaving SM Nagar we headed off for our review meeting at the office of our local partner. It is budget time for them and we were very distressed to hear that they have been really struggling for funding over the past 12 months and many of them have not been able to take salaries every month. We are hopeful that we may be able to find some additional funding for their incredibly worthwhile work.

After lunch we were off to visit a failing community school in the slum of Kanikapuram which Oasis are now working with to try and improve attendance, exam results and facilities. There is lots of work to do here!

Back to the office where we met some of the older boys who make up the first football team and have been having great success in the local league. Two of the boys have been selected to

play for the Chennai state teams. Mani the goalkeeper is pictured here with Terry (Mani is in the grey top) and has also recently had full training as a coach. One of the great things about this project is that the older boys volunteer their time as coaches to help the younger children. With training taking place at 0600 in the morning, this means many of these boys have to get up at 0430 to take training before heading off to work, college or school.

From here we visited one of the After School Clubs in Vyasapardy. This club has 50 children attending each day and we met with the teacher Sasikala and heard from her about the great progress they are all making.

Sasikala is an amazingly dedicatedleader of the club and gives us much of her spare time in the holidays to arrange extra activities for the children.

Off to our last stop of the day to meet some of the boys who attend football training. As this is exam time the morning football training is not running this week, so we arranged to meet the boys at the Skill Training Centre. The boys were very excited as we brought gift with us - sports shirts donated by Ashtead Running Club who have been great supporters of Rianna's Fund for many years and football shirts donated by residents of Ashtead

Our project visits are now over and we head off to Goa tomorrow for some chill out time before we go back to the UK. This has been another amazing trip to India for us and we are full of admiration for the work carried out by our partners in this country and the resilience of the amazing children we have met.

Melting in Chennai

2011-04-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

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.

Rescue and Restore and Cricket

2011-04-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday 2nd April 2011, what a great day to be in India. All the talk was about the Cricket World Cup Final verses Sri Lanka and whether India could win. The last time they won the World Cup was 28 years ago and it is great that Cricket fever seems to have united all elements of society.

We left Mumbai on an early flight to Hyderabad, taking off over the huge slum area that sits alongside the runway of Mumbai Airport. After dropping our bags at the hotel we gave our driver the address of Rescue and Restore Home which is about one and a half hours outside Hyderabad. Whilst assuring us he knew where this was the head wobble was an indication that this was probably not the case and so our journey was broken by regular stops to ask directions from street sellers and rickshaw drivers.

We arrived at Rescue and Restore around 1130 and were greeted by the ever smiling Bhaskar who set up and runs the home for 47 street children from the Hyderabad area. Bhaskar was a street child himself, surviving for 13 years living rough on the streets. In 2005 he realised his dream and, supported by a Church in the Netherlands, he built and opened a children's home to offer help to children who were living in the same conditions he had endured. His own experience gave him a unique hindsight in to their problems and his wife and two adopted daughters live in a small room in the home. Rianna's Fund started supporting Rescue and Restore in 2008 after meeting Bhaskar and hearing about his funding problems. We have been happy to increase the level of funding each year since then.

When we arrived the children were still at Saturday morning school but were due back around lunchtime. We took the opportunity to get an update from Bhaskar and heard that four boys were taking their final exams for Batchelor of Social Work (degree level). Two of these boys,

Raju (pictured below right) and Basha (pictured below left), are hoping to continue

studying for another two years to achieve a Masters of Social Work. Having missed out on a formal education himself, Bhaskar's pride in these

boys is wonderful to see, especially as both boys were among the group of original street children that joined the home in 2005. Bhaskar told us about his dream that in 2016 he would be able to get support to start another home in a very troubled area of Andhra Pradesh and that Raju and Basha could run the new home. As well as studying Basha has taken over running the office for Bhaskar, looking after the accounts and all administration. This saves on staffing costs and at the moment there are two volunteers who have joined through the YWAM network.

The children started arriving back from school at 1300. This is exam season in India so many had spent the morning in exams, however, all the talk was of the World Cup Cricket due to

start at 1430. Bhaskar took the opportunity to show us his new income generation project. Having had concerns over funding for the past two years, he has rented 8 acres of land close to the home to grow crops that he hopes can generate some additional income. He is growing onions, corn and ladies fingers. There are also a number of Mango trees on the site which were heavy with fruit.
Back at the home and the TV had been plugged in ready for the start of the Cricket and everyone gathered around to watch including Terry wearing his India Cricket shirt. Sitting with the children you get such a wonderful sense of being amongst one big happy family and it is easy to forget that each of these children has their own story of a very difficult start in life. As we watched the first hour of the match Bhaskar's youngest daughter Blessy (4 years old) was bossing the boys around as usual, calling them out one at a time to take their bath. Bhaskar positioned himself by the side of the TV to give it a frequent bash as the picture kept flickering.

At the end of of 2010 Bhaskar attended the wedding of one of the children from the home, a day of great pride for him. He was delighted to tell us that this boy and his wife were now expecting their first child. We were very tired from our early start and suffering from the heat, so we took one last group photo with a cry of "come on India" before they rushed back to the TV and we headed back to Hyderabad.
Back in Hyderabad we enjoyed dinner with Dr Sujay and Dr Lavanya who we met 2 years ago. This couple run a clinic for HIV / AIDS infected people from the community, including a research centre looking in to early detection of HIV. We talked about the big HIV problem in India which has the highest number of infected people of any country in the world. They were pleased to report that the increase of reported cases seems to have been stabilised thanks to many projects around HIV awareness. They also updated us on their community work around TB prevention in the 124 slums around Hyderabad and how they hope to do something in the future to support some of the large number of slum children who have dropped out of school. These two Doctors are the most amazing and dedicated couple and spending time with them is so inspiring. They headed off in the latter stages of the Cricket, hoping to get back home before the city erupted in celebrations (hopefully). Sure enough Dhoni hit a 6 to take India to a win, the fireworks started and this country of 1.2 billion began to party. We headed off to bed!

Mumbai and Way True Life

2011-04-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

What a day .... I always forget how tiring and emotionally draining these project visits are.

We arrived at Mumbai domestic airport yesterday afternoon just ahead of the Indian Cricket team arriving for the World Cup Final tomorrow. It was bedlam as India is gripped by cricket fever. We met with Pastor Raju and his wife Shilpa last night to catch up with all the news about their charity Way True Life who have been supported by Rianna's Fund now for about 18 months. It was great to see them and hear the news that they are expecting their second baby in September as well as catching up on all the many things that have been happening with Way True Life.

Raju has been fully supported by Rianna's Fund since May 2010 and this has enabled him to expand on the work he does with street children in the area of Kalyan in the suburbs of Mumbai. Recently he has formed a relationship with the rag pickers who work at the rubbish dump in Kalyan and that was our first visit of the morning. We knew it would not be possible for us to leave the car as this is a dangerous area, but seeing the conditions and the children working from the confines of our vehicle was horrifying enough. There is a bizzare hierachy on the rubbish dump, those who have been there the longest can get first pick of the rubbish coming from the upper class homes, newer people have to work "middle class" rubbish. The children are literally the very bottom of the pile, they are only allowed to collect the lowest value items (plastic bags is one thing) and we were told they are also paid a lower price for their bags of rubbish. To watch so many children pawing through heaps of stinking rubbish was heartbreaking. We opened the window to briefly talk to some of them and the stench and flies was awful. Not suprisingly they suffer from skin conditions, eye infections and get many cuts which can become infected. Many also have dog bites as they fight with hungry stray dogs for the best pickings. What broke my heart was hearing about the death of a boy who was buried alive in rubbish being dropped at the tip. Taking pictures of such human misery felt completely inappropriate but I am attaching a few we received from Raju in January this year. The children were delighted to see Raju and it is obvious he is in the process of establishing a good relationship with them. I was very emotional and unable to discuss what we had seen until much later in the day - I can not imagine any child living in worse conditions than this.

We were then off to Kalyan station which is a major railway intersection and home to a lot of runaway street children. Raju has been working here for many years councilling the children who come looking for the riches of the big city and end up collecting litter off the railway tracks. Raju tries to reconcile them with families if they have them. Some of the older children have lived in the streets around the station for many years and many are now addicted to glue or other drugs.

The next visit was thankfully more cheerful as we visited the Nursery School in the slums of Kalyan. Rianna's Fund have been supporting the Nursery School for 18 months and were delighted to see the children there looking fit and well and enjoying their first steps in education. Without the nursery many would be left sitting in the alleyways of the slums all day while their mothers go to work so the Nursery is a real haven. We enjoyed their singing and shared their snacks of bananas and biscuits before they headed home. Raju and Shilpa are pictured here singing with the children.

We drove then to the outskirts of Kalyan to meet the ten children who are now permanently living in Raju's home. Rianna's Fund have been supporting these children for the past year and so we have heard lots about them. We were very excited to be meeting them at last. They all looked very nervous when we arrived but soon relaxed as we showed them pictures from home as well as photos of many people who raise money for Rianna's Fund. We had picked up a cake on the way as one of them was celebrating his birthday today and were pleased that "Happy Birthday to You" is international language. We had heard the children's personal stories and it was great to see how well they had all settled in to their new home and how happy they are. We shared a special treat of Mutton Biryani with them and were amazed at how much they could eat.

The last item on our packed agenda was to present Diploma Certificates to the 12 girls who were graduating from the tailoring course run by Way True Life. Many girls from poor families in India will drop out of formal education for a variety of reasons. Way True Life offer these girls the opportunity to acquire a skill in tailoring and these young ladies had just finished their 16 month course which they had really enjoyed. Nine of the girls finishing the course have also been donated a free sewing machine which they can then use to establish themselves quickly as outworkers and help support themselves and their families.

We left Kalyan late in the afternoon singing the praises of Raju and Shilpa and the amazing work they are doing with the very poorest children. We endured two hours in the heaving Mumbai traffic to arrive at our hotel near the airport ready for our early flight to Hyderabad tomorrow.

Rahab project & Nakulabye School, Kampala

2011-03-26T01:50:00.000-07:00

Friday 25th March 2011

A short drive for us diehards - only 14km! - took us out of Kampala on the Guyaza Road to visit Rahab, a project rescuing and rehabilitating young girls living in the poor slum areas of the city and involved in prostitution. It was good to meet up with Annette Kiribiri again (see photo), she is married to Bernard and travelled to Buvuma island with us last year to visit the school.

Annette and a group of women wanted to help the vulnerable girls and began to enter the slum areas to visit and make contact with them in 2005. In 2006 they rented a house and began to invite girls they'd got to know to come and live in a safe environment where they would be cared for by a "mother" and receive counselling and the opportunity to go back to school. Annette makes contact with their families so that the girls can be re-settled wherever possible. There are now 30 girls living in a rented home located in a quiet neighbourhood outside the city; the youngest is only ten years old.

Annette told us of her heart-rending experiences in the slums trying to be-friend the girls and build their trust. Sadly, things don't always end happily as the girls are earning well from the trade and some are tempted to return to their old life. During our visit we spent some time with some of the girls - two of whom recently finished secondary school and hope to go on to university, fees permitting. They proudly showed us some crafts they were making to sell - paper bags, baskets and attractive paper jewellery - and it turned into a bit of a buying session!

Afterwards Annette took us to see the chicken sheds - another way the project is trying to acheive some sustainability. Despite this we learned that Rahab has a constant shortfall in funding. The whole visit was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for us all, but we also realised that this would not halt Annette's incredible determination and vision to help change the lives of as many vulnerable young girls as possible.

We drove back into the city to make a final stop-off for this trip - at Nakulabye Junior School. When we visited last year a highlight was a football match featuring Rianna's Fund versus the Nakjus boys. However, the weather this morning was stifflingly hot and I didn't detect too much disappointment when we saw a tag rugby match in full swing as we arrived! The mixed boy/girl team were practicing for a 'friendly' on Monday against another school.

We met with Moses the Headmaster for a catch-up chat in his office and afterwards asked to say hello to the children Rianna's Fund sponsors at the school, who appeared content and are reportedly progressing well. It was a short, but relaxed visit and a timely reminder at the end of our trip of how projects like Nakulabye can bring hope and help to transform the lives of children living in poverty.

Postscript: 4 trustees, 1 bus, 2,200kilometres, 11 projects, 9 days.....it's been great

Riannas Fund

Buvuma Island school

2011-03-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

Thursday 24th March 2011

The ACET team picked us up early on Thursday morning to make the hour and half drive to the lake shore where we met up with Bernard Kiribiri who began the Buvuma school with his wife, Annette. We learned our lesson from last year's trip in the open boat, and whilst watching the fishermen mend their nets, we slapped on suncream by the bucket-load!

Being carried out to the boat went without a hitch, and an hour or so later just after 11am we landed on Buvuma and were making the short walk through the bush to the murram road leading to the school. Lessons were still going on as we arrived, so the Headmaster, John Bosco, and his deputy, Robert, accompanied us into each class to exchange greetings with the children. They certainly seemed very excited to see us and also fell about laughing at the novelty of being greeted in luganda by a muzungu when Tanya tried out her smattering of the language!

As we walked around it was great to see the work going on on the new classroom block being supported by Rianna's Fund. As Jon and Steve inspected the building site, JK was very taken by a large impressive-looking building a short distance away....before realising it was the recently completed new girl's dormitory! Bernard invited us inside where around 60 of the parents had gathered for a formal welcome. The school is growing - there are 280 children attending this year. Bernard explained that the dorm will allow more girls to attend from the outlying islands. It is impressive on the inside, too, with bunkbeds for 70, a solar panel to run the electricity, and glass windows protected by decorative iron grills. Bernard told us it will be in use as soon as a perimeter fence is put up around the school site. Afterwards one of the parents spoke of the community's appreciation for the new facilities and Bernard made the formal request that the dorm might be named after Rianna, to which Steve agreed.

Afterwards we spent time mingling with children, all vying to have their photo taken. They were particularly delighted when we presented the headmaster with some colourful posters for the classrooms, and other learning materials and skipping ropes. As we said our goodbyes and headed back to the boat, a stream of giggling children walked along side us and waved us off. It was a really enjoyable day for us all, although the hundreds of kilometres we've travelled this week are finally taking their toll....and for the first time all four of us fell asleep on the long drive to Kampala, our base for the remainder of this trip.

Rianna's Fund

Namaira village school & Mawagala

2011-03-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 23rd March 2011

On Wednesday morning we headed north of Iganga in the opposite direction to Malongo. After a journey lasting one and a hlf hours we arrived at Namaira village in Kamuli district. The area has a rural peasant population who live by simple cultivation of the land, selling their excess produce to get by.

We were greeted by Pastor William along with other local pastors in the CFE network. William began a church here in 1997, first renting and then building on church land. He found there were many disadvantaged children in poor dysfunctional families and began to encourage proper care, nurturing them via a Sunday School. This led to a child development programme where children could come for pastoral care and life skills each fortnight. The existing school grew out of this and now has 60 children in nursery and primary one and two classes.

We toured the site with Pastor Paul and William and discussed their plans to grow the school in future. They are particularly keen to provide a high quality of education for the many children within a 2km radius.

We were delighted to receive the typical warm welcome from the children themselves, who sang for us in the welcome shade of a tree at the end of their school day. We left were left with much to chew over as we headed south again, pausing at Mawagala to catch up with members of the child-headed families that Rianna's Fund has been supporting for a number of years.

As we got out of the bus a group of the local mothers, mostly widows greeted us in colourful traditional dress, again in song! Pastor Paul spoke of their appreciation for the support from ACET and Rianna's Fund and JK made a sterling answering speech on our behalf. Later we were able to speak with the 'child-heads' who are now 17 and 18. We were delighted to learn that Mukama Afan has achieved his independence and is now a primary school teacher at the Mawagala school. Another of the boys, Bamutaze Saad has just finished his 'o' levels and cares for his siblings by selling milk from 6 cows he has now owns, grown from an initial donation of one!

It was great to hear from the boys first-hand the difference Rianna's Fund support has made in their lives.

Riannas Fund

New school at Malongo & Tumaini Home - Uganda

2011-03-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

Monday 21st March - Tuesday 22nd March

On Monday afternoon after our rendez vous with John and the Acet team we met up with Pastor Paul Lubaale and travelled to the Gombolola district to visit 3 communities at Namusiisi, Kasimbika and Kabitende who are looking to build new schools. At the moment children have to walk several kilometres to attend classes and standards suffer from huge class sizes and a lack of investment. We were welcomed by the local pastors and members of the three communities who had been waiting patiently for our arrival and explained their aims to us. After leaving the team travelled to Jinja where we would be based for the next three days.

Tuesday morning saw our return to the Tumaini Childrens Home located in the sugar-growing area of Kakira, near Jinja. Riannas Fund have been supporting the Home in a small way for a number of years. There are 72 children in the Home & there is now a small school on the site where 22 of the home children attend. There are 3 classes in the school and two use the main hall of the children's home. (see photo below).

Pastor Nicholas who runs the Home with his wife Maria told us of the desperate need for food for the children living in the Home. Recently one of the main supporters of the Home has stopped providing for the food & also the cost of food prices has increased over the past few months. We learned that there are a number of children who have medical needs, including one girl who has recently been in hospital and that these necessary expenses are not being met. It was very difficult to hear and we were all struck by the urgency of the situation.

After leaving Tumaini the team from Riannas Fund set off to Malongo, which was about a 2 hour drive into a very rural area south of Iganga. Luckily the murram road had been significantly improved so it wasn't the bone-shaking experience of last year!

We visited Malongo last year & subsequently agreed to send funds to build 8 classrooms (initially 3 classrooms followed by a further 5 classrooms which are nearly completed).

It was amazing to see the transformation with one block completed and in full use - very different from last year when we met the children under a temporary structure in a huge downpour. This year there were 11 classes going on in the brand new buildings & and the old shelter, with the primary children in the middle of their mid-term test papers..and the sun was shining!

We met the children & teachers at the school. There are now 413 children registered in the new school, which increased from 150 when they had no proper facilities. We visited each of the classes & the children greeted us with a song.

After taking refreshments with the Headmistress, Jennifer the children sang and danced for us expressing their appreciation for their new school. It was a great afternoon, 100% positive and we set off on the long journey home feeling very upbeat.

Riannas Fund

visiting Rianna's Furaha Childrens Home - Yala, Kenya

2011-03-21T21:44:00.001-07:00

Saturday 19th March - Sunday 20th March 2011

Steve, Jon, Tanya & David (from ACET) spent 2 days with Mama Eunice, Patrick, Lillian & all the children at RFCH in Yala, Kenya.

After being woken in the early hours of Saturday morning by a torrential tropical rain storm, Steve, Jon and Tanya were picked up by David (of Acet), and set off on the four and a half hour drive to the Kenyan border at Busia. Patrick came from RFCH to meet us and we drove to the Home arriving in time to have lunch with all the children & workers at the home. Afterwards Lillian introduced every member of the staff individually and we exchanged greetings, whilst the Rianna girls lined up outside ready to perform their songs and traditional dances.

During the afternoon we toured the compound with Eunice and Patrick and also reviewed the current plans to add more classrooms to the school on the Yala site. Two new classrooms have been added recently & there are plans to add more.

On Sunday we spent the whole day with the children at the Home. We took a gift of brightly coloured t-shirts (see Photo) and were greeted by a sea of colour as we entered the compound! Sunday afternoon is the children's time to relax and we joined in their ball games and David introduced them to the rules of cricket. It soon became clear that Eunice already knew the game when she leapt up, grabbed the bat and slugged a few impressive balls! It was later discovered that she used to play cricket at school!

It was great to spend quality time with the children and have the opportunity to talk informally with Eunice, Patrick and Lillian. We were delighted to see Betty who had recently graduated when we met her at Yala last year. She is now working as a teacher, teaching geography and ki-swahili in a boys secondary school in nearby Mumias. Betty was supported through her school & university fees by Rianna's Fund.

When we headed back to Uganda the following day we also gave a lift to William who is currently being supported through school fees. William recently passed his 'A' levels and was on his way to register for an IT degree at Makerere University after collecting his certificates from his secondary school in Iganga, eastern Uganda.

It was fantastic to spend time with the children at RFCH & they all looked very healthy & happy. We were told how Linda has now become the first of the children to pass her exams to enable her to go to Secondary boarding school. The staff & children were so proud & told us about how all the girls in the Home went to the bus stop to see Linda leave for her new school carrying her new umbrella & dressed smartly in her uniform. Recently, Linda went back to RFCH for the school holidays & all the children wanted to know how she is getting on. It has inspired the other children to study & pass their exams.

On Monday morning Steve, Jon, Tanya & David travelled back across the border to Uganda to Jinja to meet up with John K & other members of the ACET, Uganda team. The next week will be spent visiting the current Rianna's Fund projects in Uganda & also looking at new projects to support. The current projects will include visiting the new schools at Malongo & Buvuma island following last years trip to Uganda.

Rianna's Fund

March 2011

Rianna's Fund - projects visits

2011-03-17T13:52:00.001-07:00

Over the next couple of weeks Riannas Fund will be visiting some of the projects we are supporting.

Steve, Jon & Tanya will be going to Rianna's Furaha Childrens Home in Yala, Kenya & will then be joined by John in the east of Uganda. The team will then visit the projects in Uganda including the new school buildings at Malongo & Buvuma Islands.

In addition they will be looking at some new projects to support in 2011/12 in Uganda.

In addition Jo & Terry will be leaving for India at the end of the month to visit Rianna's Fund projects in Chennai, Bangalore & Mumbai.

We are hoping to post some updates of the trips via this blog.

Many thanks to all our supporters who enable us to continue to support Riannas Fund Projects in Africa & India.

You can see details of our Project visits last year on the previous blog entries:

http://riannasfund.blogspot.com/

& more details can be found on the Projects page of our website:

http://www.riannasfund.org/Projects.htm

Riannas Fund

http://www.riannasfund.org/

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Jolly Children Academy, Bbika

2010-02-10T09:15:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 9th February 2010

Our last day in Uganda & in the morning we visited Bbika school in Wakiso district, 25kms north of Kampala. The school is called the Jolly Children Academy and is named after Jolly Nyeko the founder of Action for Children, Uganda. Riannas Fund has provided funding for additional classrooms at the school & we were accompanied on the trip by Alex & Jessica from Action for Children.

After turning off the main road we travelled along a narrow track through the rural area. There had been a storm earlier in the morning & we had to get out of the vehicle at one stage to ensure that we could pass along the muddy road. We arrived at the school and were greeted by the 192 children attending. The school currently has 6 Primary school classes & we were met by the Headmistress Janet Koote & some of the children.

We visited each of the classes and John took over from the teachers and asked the children some questions, the children in the Maths class were especially good. It was great for us to see the children being taught in 2 of the classrooms provided by Rianna's Fund. A further classroom is also very close to completion, which will allow the youngest 2 classes to have their own room as they currently share the main hall which is divided in two by a bamboo screen (and can be very noisy).

We then visited the Action for Children 'transition' centre based on the school grounds. There are currently 10 babies or small children being looked after by Alice (the 'mother') and the home is linked to a freephone Helpline operated by Action for Children in Kampala. The children receive food & medical help until they are well enough to be put up for fostering in the local community. The baby Tanya is holding in the photograph below is a recent arrival who the staff have named Moses. He is around 4 months old & was found abandoned, nothing is known of his family.

After looking over the site of the school we had some time to play with the children during their lunch break & leave some small gifts for the children with Janet, the Headmistress.

We then headed back to Kampala for a review of the week with David & Emma from ACET, Uganda. We have seen some great projects during our time in Uganda, including a number of existing & new projects. We hope to be able to support some new home & school projects in the near future!

Steve, Tanya, Jon & John
Rianna's Fund

February 2010

Buvuma Islands

2010-02-08T06:30:00.000-08:00

Monday 8th February 2010

A 6.30am pick up from the hotel saw us heading back east for a trip out to the Buvuma Islands. At the Lugazi sugar factory we left the main road & drove 45 minutes to the lake shore. There was much discussion in the car about the mode of transport to take us to the main Island.

We were accompanied by Annette Kirabira (who initiated the school project with her husband) & Francis the Headmaster of the School. As we approached the shore Annette broke the news to us that we would be individually carried out to the boat, along with supplies of banans & charcoal for the islanders! When we saw the boat we were pleased that lifejackets were available for the one & a half hour crossing! Half way across it started to rain but it soon passed and was pleasantly hot on arrival.

It was a short walk to the school through the bush and along a murram road that runs around the island. As we approached the school the children were playing outside. Francis the Headmaster then banged a gong & all the children immediately dropped to the ground (including Jon). The children then went into their classes and we went into each class to meet them. Due to the shortage of space most classrooms are divided in two by bamboo screens.

The school started in a temporary structure in 2008 with 2 nursery classes & 3 primary classes. Currently there are over 150 children who will attend this year (from 40 when the school started). This is impressive as in the past the local people have not considered formal education necessary because they could earn money fishing everyday. Most of the children in the school come from the main island, however, there are many children in the outlying islands who require an education. The plans for the school are to build more classrooms & dormitories so these children can stay on site during term time.

It is the only school on the island & is situated on a large plot of around 5 acres of mostly tropical vegetation stretching down to the shore. There was a really peaceful feel to the place. We met Pastor Collins who was busy helping out with some building works to some classrooms. He and Francis live at the school, along with the other 7 teachers. At the moment the living quarters for the teachers are inadequate. Annette & her husband Bernard have plans to increase the number of classrooms, provide accomodation for the teachers & start an income generating project on the site.

Before we left we took a photograph of all the children & teachers outside the temporary classroom block. We then headed back to the shore and spent a peaceful 20 minutes sitting by the lake surrounded by birds & cattle. We were then carried on to the boat for a scorching hot trip back to the mainland. Although we were only at the school for a couple of hours the journey was a 10 hour round trip!

Rianna's Fund

Mityana Best Hours Primary School

2010-02-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

Saturday 6th February 2010

We drove west out of Kampala for a couple of hours to Mityana. After driving down a narrow track for a further 20 minutes we arrived at Mityana School. We met up with Bishop Johnstone & Headmistress Alice Hope.

The school is on a site of about 2 acres and there are currently 6 classrooms for the 150 children. They are looking to build more classrooms, one for each Primary year & to build a main hall. The local area is a very poor rural area with a high number of AIDS orphans. There are very few jobs and most people exist by cultivating the land & collecting fire wood, so many families find it hard to pay school fees.

We walked round the site which included a temporary nursery class & the kitchen (a wooden shack) had just collapsed. Up until 4 years ago the school consisited of a papyrus (thatched) shelter.

As we left the school we saw the children enjoying their break on a large field in front of the school, including makeshift netball posts & a game of football. On the way back we stopped off in the town to buy some local snacks called kabalagala, a cassava & banana fritter! Some of the boys preferring their geo-bars.

The school was a long drive from Kampala & we spent more time in the vehicle & the joys of Ugandan traffic.

Rianna's Fund

Nakulabye Junior School, Kampala

2010-02-05T06:05:00.000-08:00

Friday 5th February

After staying in Jinja overnight we travelled the 2 hour journey back to Kampala & went straight to the Nakulabye Junior School. It was the first time we have been back to the school since the opening day in March 2008. We walked down to the site and could see how the garden around the school had matured, including a number of banana trees (which the children eat for a snack).

We met Moses the Headmaster who explained that there are 640 children registered at the school. There were fewer than this here today, as it is the first week of the new school year, however it will be full next week. We dropped in to all of the childrens classes from the Kindergarten/Nursery up to Primary class 7 (when the children are 13 years). We gave the children some small gifts including pencils, ink stamps & bouncy balls. We also took a number of educational maps & posters for the new Resource centre. The children greeted us politely as we moved from class to class talking with them & asking questions as they worked.

At lunctime we saw the children queue outside the kitchen for their maize porridge (posho). It was then playtime & the boys from Riannas Fund produced a football & challenged the Nakulabye team. The boys in red team joined with Steve, Jon & John as Tanya videoed the match. The highlight was John Kelting scoring a superb goal & celebrating by running round the pitch with his Rianna's Fund shirt over his head. The pitch was more or less flat except for a smouldering bonfire down the left wing!

Meanwhile in the background the women from the community were washing and hanging clothes over the fence, whilst the younger children fetched water from the community well on the site of the school. We were pleased to learn that the school site is now regarded as a safer environment & consequently people are starting to build houses in the immediate vicinity. We felt so encouraged after visiting the school as it seems to have had a positive impact on so many of the children in this poor community.

After leaving the school we checked back in to our hotel in Kampala and had a couple of hours rest before heading in to town to meet up with Robert Nsibirwa to learn some about local microfinance initiatives.

For more information on Nakulabye Junior School please see the website;
http://riannasfund.org/Nakulabye%20Junior%20School.htm

Steve, Tanya, Jon & John

Rianna's Fund in Uganda

2010-02-04T11:32:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 3rd pm & Thursday 4th February

After a quick lunch Steve, Tanya, Jon & John, together with David & Emma from ACET, headed to Tumaine home in Kakira on the outskirts of a large sugar plantation. Rianna's Fund has been contributing to the food costs for the 80 children for the past 3 years.

We were greeted by the children singing outside the front of the Home. Inside the hall we were entertained by more of their amazing singing after which Pastor Nicholas & his wife Maria greeted us and introduced us to the workers in the Home. After some short speeches Tanya spent time with Brenda, age 16, Jessica & Ivan, both 8 years, Sheila, age 12 & Natasha 11, talking about their life at the home and their aspirations for the future. Meanwhile Steve, Jon & John produced a new football (surprise surprise) & promptly arranged an England v Uganda game. Jon is still talking about his masterful strike in the first half (scoring past the 6 year old Uganda goalie).

Afterwards we went around the site with pastor Nicholas hearing about his plans for a new school for nursery and primary age children from the home and surrounding community. We said goodbye to the children and went with pastor Nicholas to see the nearby Kakira slum village. The community is extremely poor with many women and children who have been abandoned by their husbands/fathers when they have completed their contracts at the sugar factory. In the middle of the slum we saw the youth centre run by pastor Nicholas & Maria. The children are able to go here to receive food and some counselling. Most of the families have no income and survive by brewing Waragi, a rough spirit distilled from cheap molasses from the sugar plant, whose distinctive smell permeates throughout the slum.

It was a pretty gruelling end to the day which provoked much thought and discussion that evening.

The following day we had an early start and headed 20kms east to Iganga. We spent the day with pastor Paul of CFE, first heading to Mawagala village. Rianna's Fund have supported over 30 children's school fees in this area, including a number of child headed families. Some of these children were there to meet us, including Afan, Mohammed, Fred, Brenda & Saad. We have met Afan twice before, he is now 17 and in his second year of teacher training college (whilst looking after his 4 younger brothers). Most of the young people we met are now at secondary school & Mohammed has just completed his studies.

Pastor Paul then took us to a very rural area near Lake Victoria to visit a potential new project in Malongo. We travelled for 2 and a half hours along a murram road in a thunderstorm. The community is made up of many tribes and fishing was the main source of income, until it was recently made illegal. Most of the families are very poor and survive by cultivating the land which is fortunately fertile.

We were greeted in the pouring rain by 185 children (all under 9 years of age) who were gathered in their temporaray school shelter. This was a corrugated iron roof supported by simple wooden poles. The noise of the rain made it impossible to hear anything for the first 15 minutes! Still the children continued to sing and crowd round us while we all tried to keep dry. We discussed with pastor Patrick & Fred, the Community Development Centre officer, their plans to build a permanent school on the site. This school is much needed as there are only 3 schools in the entire parish & classes can be as many as 800 children to 1 teacher. The community are very keen to have their own school and raised the necessary funds for the temporary structure between themselves.

After a return journey to Jinja (fuelled by the bananas given to us by the Malongo community) we headed to the hotel for a cup of tea and a lively de-brief & discussion with David & Emma on the projects seen so far.

Link to details of Tumaine Home & 'child headed' families on the website;
http://www.riannasfund.org/Child%20Headed%20Families%20and%20Tumani.htm

Rianna's Fund

Rianna's Furaha Childrens Home

2010-02-04T10:58:00.000-08:00

Monday 1st - Wednesday 3rd February

Steve & Tanya spent 2 days at Yala visiting Mama Eunice and the 42 children in the home.
We arrived at 2pm after a long drive from Kampala, Uganda with David Kabiswa from ACET. It was our first visit to the Home for nearly 3 years.

The children were there to meet us, having been given permission to take the afternoon off school. After lunch the children sang for us & the gilrs performed traditional Luo dances, wearing Rianna's Fund t-shirts and grass skirts. Eunice introduced us to the children & the workers at the Children's Home. It was a really relaxed afternoon & amazing to see how much the children had grown up since last seeing them. Cedric who was the smallest & youngest when the home opened has grown up strong and healthy.

We returned the following day and discussed future plans for the Home and how the children are progressing. We then did a tour of the Yala site including the Nursery school children in their lessons & the poultry project with over 100 chickens. Later on we met up with some of the children in the School Fees programme, including Betty who graduated in Education last month from Makerere University.

In the afternoon the children came back from school & we all had lunch together. After lunch we showed the a scrap book and read out letters from some children in the UK, with Mama Eunice explaining to the little ones in Luo. We then gave the children some gifts, including pencil sets, skipping ropes & bubbles. These were put to immediate use!

It was good to have a chat with the older boys, James, Mark & David (now 14 years old) & to hear about the Rianna's Dynamos football team. They are hoping to enter their second tournament later in the year. We spent the afternoon chatting with the children and taking group and individual photographs of them all. The photography session took longer than expected due to interruptions by Mama Eunice tucking in the boys shirts and turning over the girls collars!

On Wednesday we called in to the Home on the way back to Uganda. It was very quiet with all the children at school and we took time to say goodbye & thanks to Mama Eunice, Patrick & Lillian for their hospitallity and great work with children. The children in the home all seem so healthy and contented - one big extended family!

Afterwards we headed for the long drive (5 and a half hours) over the border to Jinja in Uganda to meet up with Jon & John who had arrived the previous evening.

Link to Rianna's Furaha Childrens Home on the website;
http://www.riannasfund.org/Riannas%20Furaha%20Childrens%20Home.htm

Steve & Tanya.

Rianna's Fund trip to Kenya & Uganda

2010-01-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

Rianna's Fund are going to visits projects in Kenya & Uganda in early February 2010.

Steve & Tanya are going to see the children at Rianna's Furaha Children's Home in Yala, Kenya. They are looking forward to seeing the children & Mama Eunice. The last visit to see the children was over 3 years ago & it will be great to see how the children are progressing.

http://www.riannasfund.org/Riannas%20Furaha%20Childrens%20Home.htm

They will be joined by Jon & John in Uganda & will be visiting the Rianna's Fund projects in Uganda, aswell as looking at potential new School Projects. they will also be visiting the Nakulabye School in Kampala, the last visit was at the opening of the school in March 2008.

http://www.riannasfund.org/Nakulabye%20Junior%20School.htm

More details of the other Rianna's Fund Projects in Uganda can be found on the Projects page of the website;

http://www.riannasfund.org/Projects.htm

Rianna's Fund

Christmas Celebrations

2009-12-24T20:23:00.001-08:00

Another early start for us yesterday to visit another of the football projects being supported by Rianna’s Fund. This one was in an area of Chennai called Egmore and we arrived there at 0630 to see the boys training. They have some really good players in this group including Balak who has been selected to play for the county.

We were told that this slum community had been given eviction

notices and their “homes”were due to be levelled to make way for a new freeway. The government do move them to alternative housing but it is a long way outside the City and there are few opportunities to get work in these areas. Consequently some families gravitate back to the City and become pavement dwellers but can at least access work as day labourers. The community had been on standby for about 3 weeks and the trucks actually arrived to move them about an hour after we left. Thankfully some of the football coaches and representatives of our local partners were still there and were able to say goodbye to the children and families but the boys were very upset that they would no longer be part of this amazing programme.

We visited two of the after school programmes later in the morning. The children had actually finished school until 4^th January, but when they found out that visitors were coming many came in especially to meet us. We heard more about the support these clubs give them with their school work and the fun they have participating in art and crafts. Most of these clubs run in partnership with local Churches and are Church volunteers.

In SM Nagar the programme has been responsible for getting 35 children back in to school and we met Lakshman who was one of these children Lakshman (see picture) is now shining as a real star in his school and obtained top scores in his recent exams. He has also received a gold award from an art competition run by the local city council. He was very proud to show us his books and artwork.

After a few hours to freshen up we headed off to Annai Fathima Children’s Home for our Christmas celebration. We first visited this home for 160 orphans about a year ago and saw what a dreadful condition it was in. In particular the sewage pipes need repairing as they leak, and the land needs levelling as currently stagnant water sits around for many months creating real issues with the children’s health. We have been working since then to get local contractors to offer quotes and advise on the best way to tackle the problems and we hope that work will start early in the New Year. This will also include a rain water collection system to feed water in to their well which is currently dry for many months of the year.

As in many countries across the world, the big Christmas celebration here is on Christmas Eve. We had asked told Annai Fathima about our visit and asked what we could arrange for the children. Their big wish was to have a special Christmas meal including meat.

We had arranged for Chicken Biryani to prepared for them and then special celebration cakes. This was funded by the money raised by St Giles School at the Worldwide Charities Fair in Ashtead and we also delivered some Christmas messages and pictures of the children at St Giles.

The children of Annai Fathima put on a superb Cultural Show for us with fantastic dancing and we led them in singing Jingle Bells which is one Christmas carol which had broken through the language barrier. It was an amazing evening and even included a visit from their own little Father Christmas delivering a sweet for each child. Handing out the dishes of Chicken Biryani to the children was a very emotional experience, they were so thrilled to receive this Christmas gift and even the smallest of them ate everything given to them. We joined them cross legged and eating with our hands which caused a lot of tittering, I think probably because of the mess we made.

I cannot think of a more perfect way to celebrate Christmas!

We're now in Chennai

2009-12-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

We left Mumbai as the newspapers were reporting more drastic moves relating to the water shortage there. A lady was arrested after she had accessed the water mains to siphon off water to sell it and the local council are voting on Thursday whether they should cut off the water supply on one day in every seven.

We arrived in Chennai yesterday, formerly Madras. This buzzing City is on the East coast of South India, one of the many areas hit by the Tsunami. Today was a very long day. My son Luke arrived this morning landing at 0400 and after we met him Terry and I headed off to visit one of the morning football training camps that Rianna’s Fund is now supporting as part of the Sports Project in Chennai.

Football training is the carrot to get slum children back in to school. If parents allow children to attend school rather than working or begging, then they often drop out as they cannot keep up with the homework in slum homes without lighting. Depending on the time of year training starts at either 0530 or 0600 and the dedication is amazing, children walk miles to get to a rough piece of ground and then leave at 0715 to head back to school. The football training builds confidence and self esteem and the after school clubs run as part of this project ensures they keep up with homework and receive tuition in life skills.

We arrived at training in Vyasarpadi at 0630 and were amazed at how serious all the boys were. We met the three newest recruits, Naveen 9, Maurai 12 and Arunkumar 10 who had been coming for over a month now and were all back in school and attending the after school clubs run in this area. They told us how much they love coming and their favourite football player was Ronaldo. Rianna's Fund support has allowed them to include a morning snack of a banana and a bun for the children which is really important for these children.

Another great thing about this project is that the boys in the senior team now give their time voluntarily to help the younger children. Natraj pictured here is one of those young men, he is now 19 and in College but comes along each morning to help with the training.

We headed back to the hotel for breakfast before heading off to meetings with our project partners and then ended up visiting the after school club in Vyasarpadi.

Children here told us how the teachers helped them with homework and to catch up with any subjects they were struggling with. They also enjoy Fun Time here, time to just be children and take place in activities which they would not normally experience – art, crafts, story telling and games. Two hours in Chennai rush hour traffic delivered us back to our hotel.

I feel a bit of a fraud when we turn up to receive thanks for supporting children when it is really the many Rianna’s Fund supporters who make this a reality.

Another early start tomorrow as we visit another of the Sports Projects in a different area of Chennai. We thought we’d have a night off Curry but are rather disappointed that the club sandwich is rather bland!

Dharavi - the largest slum in Asia

2009-12-20T07:52:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I was given an article about a company in Mumbai called ‘Reality Tours’ who operate a tour of the Dharavi Slum in Mumbai with the goal of dispelling some of the negative perceptions about the people who live there. We had visited a small area of the slum before with NGO’s but this showed us a completely different side of things and certainly opened our eyes to the reality of living and working in these conditions.

Dharavi Slum is the largest slum in Asia with 1.1 million people living in .67 square miles. Our guide was Abi who was brought up here and well known by many people. There was a lot of staring from the residents and we had to get used to the intense heat (and this is winter!), the acrid smells and swarms of flies but this was a fascinating tour.

We have seen ‘rag pickers’ all over Mumbai, usually women or children who sift through the rubbish heaps to collect paper, plastic, cans, etc. which they sell on to be recycled. In Dhavari Slum we found the next stage in this amazing recycling chain. All of these things have a value to people who have nothing and amongst the extremely narrow alleyways we found businesses built around turning these items back in to raw materials to be sold back to industries. Plastics broken down, dried on the corrugated iron roofs , melted down and then extruded and chopped in to small pellets. Cooking oil cans are heated to remove any logos and images and then beaten back to shape and polished to be re-used. Aluminium cans are melted down and blocks of the metal created. The estimated turnover of Dharavi slum is around £350 million a year.

PICTURES ACROSS THE ROOFS OF DHARAVI SLUM : Plastic being broken down and dried before being melted to sell on. Freshly died fabric being dried before being taken down to the workshop below to make in to garments.

Men, women and children are engaged in back breaking work to earn enough to do nothing more than provide food for their families and pay rent to the slum landlords. At the end of the day many have to sweep the floors where they work to give space to sleep. As we coughed our way through the stench from the fires where they melt the aluminium and plastics, and wiped our streaming eyes walking through the thick smoke from the make-shift kiln baking clay pots, there was very little conversation from our small group.

Ideas that slum dwellers sit around all day begging, drinking and sniffing glue were immediately dispelled. There is no doubt the working conditions were horrific, and we were told that workers earn about 120 Rupees per day (about £1.50) for a 10 – 12 hour day. We found Muslim workers building Hindu shrines and heard how, following racial riots here and about 1,000 deaths in the 1990’s, all faiths now celebrate and work together. We found make-shift Churches, Mosques and Hindu shrines amongst the plastic, concrete and sheet metal. A group of boisterous boys in high spirits accidently knocked in to me and a few minutes later two men caught up with us to offer apologise on behalf of the community. I have been in situations before where I have felt humbled, but as I tried to imagine how these people get up each day I was numb with humility. Offering the children a way out of this lifestyle is all about education and the opportunities are few.

If you ever visit Mumbai this is an absolute must.

A Potatoe - what a luxury!

2009-12-19T05:30:00.000-08:00

A Potato – what a luxury!

Over the past two days we have enjoyed catching up with what has been happening in India since our last visit. We are always very keen to read the newspapers and talk to the locals to find out about the way they view the issues of the day and the battles they face in their everyday lives.

One of the biggest issues is the massive increase in food prices over the last 12 months. Headlines in yesterdays paper read “Soaring food prices threaten Indian stability” and suggests there could be political unrest as the cost of many basic foods is now so high, with a particularly horrific effect on the poorest people. Pulses have increased in price by 40% over the past year and the price of vegetables has shot up. Potatoes have increased in price by 136%. Catching up with one of our partner NGO’s we were told that he ordered one of this favourite potato dishes in a restaurant and it arrived but did not include any potatoes.

The situation has been magnified by the other major crisis which relates to water shortages. Mumbai in particular faces an acute water shortage, with supplies being reduced by 30% in the worst shortages in history. I am trying to refrain from making comments about the responsibility of Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen at this point – oops, did that just slip out!

NGO’s in India are seeing 10 - 20% reduction in charitable giving from overseas. This is partly attributable to the current economic climate around the world, but there is also a great concern that trying to fundraise for India is becoming harder because of the perception that India is now a wealthy country. This is tragic when India still has 800 million people living on less than $2 per day and the gap between the haves and have nots seems to be getting wider.

PICTURES : The contrasts of India - a Rolls Royce showroom and a family of pavement dwellers.

Today we did take some time out to do some sightseeing, something we have not had time for in the past. Quite bizarrely the stories surrounding the terror attacks of November 2008 seem to be a point of national pride. Our driver was very keen to point out where the terrorists landed their boat, the obvious damage to some of the hotels they raided and other details of that day.

Sorry to hear you guys are struggling with the snow, we are having the opposite problem here with temperatures in the early 30’s.

Finally arrived in Mumbai

2009-12-17T05:28:00.000-08:00

You may say this is not a picture you would expect to see from India....we'll you'd be right. The three hours in Cairo Airport between flights turned out to be over 24 hours thanks to Air Egypt. We were told our luggage had gone ahead to Mumbai but thankfully were accommodated in a very nice hotel. Our only option then was to make the most of the adventure and to see one of the seven wonders of the World. It was made more exciting (although less comfortable) by enjoying this experience on camels.

We arrived in Mumbai over 26 hours late and unfortunately could not make it in time to visit the Nursery School now being supported by Rianna's Fund in the slum area of Kalyan on the outskirts of Mumbai. We did receive some delightful Christmas Cards made by the

children and their performance of some famous English nursery

rhymes had been recorded on the mobile phone of our partner Raju. Thankfully we have some lovely photos of some of the children from our last visit and were pleased to hear about their great progress.

We did make it in time for lunch, our first curry of the trip and straight in to eating with our hands. Lunch was with our partner NGO 'Way True Life' to discuss the plans for building a new home for Street Children in Kalyan. After a 9 month wait 'Way True Life' have been granted their licence to receive overseas funding and are now looking for suitable land and putting together plans for the construction. Driving through this desperately poor area we saw a number of children living on the streets of this rapidly growing suburb. Kalyan is a major railway junction and this has led to a large number of children living from begging at the railway station and on the streets.

Back to our hotel for some much needed sleep and looking forward to a full day in Mumbai tomorrow.

Sports & Educational project - Chennai

2009-11-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

Manimaran was a school drop-out & used to roam the Chennai slum of Sathymoornager whilst his parents worked long hours as rag-pickers. Project workers visited his family and with their cooperation were able to help Manimaran enrol in a transit school which he now regularly attends.

Mumbai Home gets the go ahead

2009-11-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

After a wait of several months, Way True Life, the charity run by Pator Raju & Shilpa Ram, has been granted the necessary FCRA certificate to receive overseas funding. The couple are now actively looking for some land and a contractor so that work on a new Children's Home for 50 street children can begin soon

Rianna's Fund is already offering support to the pre-school (balwadi) and is committed to funding the new children's home working in partnership with Raju & Shilpa.

For regular updates on the progress please see our website;

http://www.riannasfund.org/

Rianna's Fund - sponsored events & donations

2009-11-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

Rianna's Fund is now on Virgin Money Giving / Just Giving

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/charity-web/charity/finalCharityHomepage.action?charityId=1000034

http://www.justgiving.com/riannasfund

Rianna's Fund website

2009-11-07T14:56:00.001-08:00

The link to the Rianna's Fund website is below;

http://www.riannasfund.org/

Rianna's Fund on twitter

2009-11-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

You can follow all the latest updates on Rianna's Fund by also following us on twitter;

http://twitter.com/RiannasFund