We wish all our donators and friends of Seva Sangam a Good and Healthy 2016

Flooding in Chennai.
Our children's home Seva Sangam and the school are situated in the big city Trichy in the state Tamil Nadu, in south India. The capital of this state is Chennai (formerly Madras). In November, for weeks this metropolis was to a large extent flooded by the incredibly violent and prolonged monsoon rains.
But also quite a few other coastal towns on the east coast of the state are affected by the monsoon rains.
From all over the state aid projects have been started, because many, and of course especially the poorest, have lost everything by the devastating water.
With us here, hardly any attention was paid to it in the press. It is most likely that this is because there are not so many deaths. The whole public life was disrupted and this of course also has its influence on the entire state. For instance, since the schools were closed for several weeks in Chennai, all national examinations have been postponed a few weeks, also for our girls in Seva Sangam. This means that our girls have a bit more time to study, but subsequently also a much shorter holiday.

Christmas Mail.
The mail in the entire state of Tamil Nadu was also disrupted for some time. Unfortunately, therefore, the Christmas and New Year Wishes were late again this time, but it is what it is.
Many girls write about the flood disaster in Chennai and that also in their neighborhood very many fundraising activities are kept for the victims. Some girls also made drawings about the flood. I attach a beautiful drawing of this to our mail version of the newsletter. All girls are thankfull that they live safely in Trichy far away from the coast.
Especially the notes of the students are nice to read.
A number of girls wrote that they are the first in their family who are allowed to study and who can study. And this thanks to the help from the Netherlands. And further more: "If I will get a job, then I'm also going to help poor people ....".� And of course this is where we have to aim for eventually. Kowsalya wants to become a journalist, I have not read about this in her notes. She has also won many awards in gymnastics competitions.

Guest lessons at primary schools in Valkenburg.
Our Foundation is affiliated with the Platform for Global Citizenship in Valkenburg. Along with this platform and Global Exploration lessons, we have again given lessons about Global Citizenship this year, now at primary schools in Vilt and Broekhem (Municipality of Valkenburg).It gave a lot of satisfaction again. For us, it was also good to experience how many different nationalities there are at primary schools in the small village of Valkenburg. At the school in Broekhem there are even 21 different nationalities.
We exhibited our new film, which shows this time many recordings of the daily lives of our girls in the hostel and school. The film shows that in a dormitory in Seva Sangam 40 girls are lying side by side on the floor. That's normal for them. This made a Valkenburg student comment: "Oh, a slumber party!".
At Seva Sangam the girls have to do their own washing of course. The comment of a student was: "Oh, that's where I have my Mum for."
Well, let's hope that something of the differences lingers among the youth of Valkenburg.

A classroom in the Netherlands....

.. and one in India.

Looking back on a successful information day.
It was very busy again in the small village Vilt on Sunday, November 22nd. In the community center more than 80 visitors watched attentively the latest news around Seva Sangam. We gave a detailed explanation of our future, as we have already mentioned in the last newsletter of September.
We told them that we will gradually reduce activities in the Netherlands in the coming years. The board in India is actively seeking new donors in their own environment, this has been promised to us. Comments on our story, ranged from pity to very understanding. Subsequently, the new information film was watched.
Then we enjoined a performance of very nice Bollywood dances.
Our Indian friend Anu from Maastricht had, in six weeks time, rehearsed a nice little program with her new Bollywood dance group.
And how enthusiastic the ladies and the audience were! At the end, more than 50 visitors enjoyed a delicious Indian buffet again.
In short, India was again just briefly the center in Vilt.

Our new film.
In the messages above you have already been able to read everything about our new film. This film, for which we made the recordings in February during our last visit, has been very worthwhile. We've already shown it a few times and we get positive reactions. We think it is particularly suitable to show in schools. Therefore we want to draw your attention to this film once again. If you wish to see this film (with a school or group), then we would like to hear this, so we can make arrangements. And although we will slowly phase out, here in Netherlands, we'd like to continue justifying our project well, and this film is really very suitable for this purpose.
 
On behalve of the board: Mieke Aussems - van de Beek

 

This is Rangeela's drawing.