Bringing Items over for the Children
 What to Bring
We do accept everything but do find that people do give us things that really aren't suitable for the children in Goa. This will hopefully guide you to what is suitable to bring and what's not. This list is based on the items we have received in the last year.
Household Items
Anything that can be used at the house is always welcomed. This can be from washing up liquid to Tootpaste it all helps. To give you an idea of what we use most see the list below.
1. Personal Hygene - Any items like :-
These are always welcome as we use them evey day and we also like to give these out directly to the families in the slums so we can promote cleanliness at their homes which is also very important. Shower gel, toilet paper (for use by volunteers at the Mango House) is also welcome - Note : Most economy brands in the supermarkets are very good and will save a few pennies...
2. Cleaning Products - It might not be directly related to children, but we do still have to keep 'The Mango House' clean and safe for the children. Many household items aren't as good quality in India. Washing up liquid, toilet cleaner, mop heads, surface cleaner, scrubbers for the dishes, washing powder etc would all be welcomed.
3. Storage - It can be very difficulty to keep the mango house clutter free. We are lucky to receive items from visitors and these need to be sorted straight away otherwise it becomes harder and harder as more arrive. To help with this we try and sort all the items out straight away,to do this we need contianers to sort the items into. Idea containers are the popup canvas laundry bins, these are cheap and easy to store when not in use. This allows us to seperate out tshirts, trousers, dresses, sandals, underwear, towels for both boys and girls. When we have enough clothes we then pair items together and having them seperated make this so much easier. As well as clothes we get lots of small toys, seperating these out make giving presents out so much easier. The presents are seperated into Girls/Boys and in size, the small 'free' type presents are used for pass the parcels for the celebrations, the bigger ones for Diwali, Christmas and Birthday presents and the medium / smaller ones to average presents so all the children get a simlar size present. Having them all seperated makes the job so much easier and gives us a better idea of how many presents we can give out. We are hoping to give out around 1000 wrapped christmas presents again this year to children from the slums.
Toys
Toys are great, the more we get the more that we can give out to slums in the area.
1. Size - Size is important. We mostly want small toys that can be used as either presents for birthdays, Christmas or other celebrations, Small toys are much easier to even out so that each child gets a simlar sized gift. Larger stronger toys would generally be used at 'The Mango House' so all the children could play with them. Large 'TONKA' toys are great and are the most used at the house..
2. Batteries NOT Included - Generally speaking we would prefer not to have toys that require batteries. These can't really be given as presents as the children's families would unlikely be able to afford to buy them and it increases the costs. However for toys that are based at 'The Mango House' then toys that can be recharged or plugged into the main would be ok as Electricty is generally cheap in India.
3. Strong Toys - toys tend not to last very long in the hands of the children. Skipping ropes, cars etc are quickly broken so larger toys are best if they are solid, well made and don't have small items on them which can break. With smaller toys it is not such a problem although we would hate for a child to receive a present and 5 minutes later it's in pieces.
4. Simplicity - some of the best toys are the simple ones, spinning tops, balls, skipping ropes, footballs, frisbees, balloons etc. Games that can be played outside are also good. Even play tents to shade from the sun, for beach days or to keep the younger children safe. Board games, especially those with small pieces aren't as good as most of the children can' t read english and find instructions difficult to follow.
5. Christmas/Celebration presents - we are always in need of small presents that can be shared out, at Christmas 2007 we gave out 1000 wrapped Christmas presents, this year hopefully the same.! Good things for presents are small toy cars, dolls, cuddly toys, balls, skipping ropes, Balloons, bangles, hair clips etc for the girls, make yourself aeroplanes, small colouring books (5 - 20 pages). Many of the slums we visit there are from 20 - 60 children, so a collection of similar items are great as we can give each child the same toy.
6. For 'The Mango House' - We like the children to have a great time at the Mango House, the children do have some firm favourites, including Large meatal TONKA toy type toys or large cars which the children zoom around the rooms with them, space hoppers. If anyone has an old scaletrix or train set (fully working as I don't think there are parts readily available in Goa) I am sure the children would love them. On special occasions it might be nice if the children could play computer games. Does anyone have an old play station with games (or similar)?
Arts and Crafts
We strongly encourage the children to be creative, so we always appreciate items that can be used in arts and crafts.
1. Good quality metal scissors We receive many plastic scissors but these do not last long in the children's hands so we would prefer to receive good quality scissors that can be used again and again
2. A4 Card, A4 Plain Paper, Coloured Card is always appreciated. As we have around 40 children that's 40 pieces of paper or card every time we do a project so it quickly gets used up. Card is probably the most useful as this can be hard to find in India... Laminating sheets are also great as we often need to laminate posters and badges for the chidlren.
3. IDEAS ! - Our volunteers are GREAT, but sometimes they need a little bit of inspirtion on what projects would be good to do. We like projects that are simple and can be used in groups of 10 to 15 children, If you have any ideas (with good instructions) then please email us, the more the merrier so please send them into our email address
4. Paint - Many of the activities the volunteers do with the children use paint, so large containers of paint would be ideal (like the ones that are used in schools).
5. Ideas for crafts, rainy day books (with ideas of fun things to do), Games ideas, Songs books etc would be wonderful. Many of the volunteers that come to help have the heart for volunteer work but have no experience of working in this type of envionment. So any resources that give us ideas of things to do would be great
6. Artisitic Materials - Beads, felt, coloured paper, card, cellotape, art straws, pva glue, prit sticks, glitter, paint (like you get in schools) would be great to encourage the children to be creative. The children love getting messy and we don't mind cleaning up after them so anything like this would be great.
7. Felts, Pens, Pencils, Crayons - We have had a large number of these items and as such please do not buy these especially, although we are happy to receive them if you already have them. We have been able to help other charities and schools by donating some of our resources.
8. Art Teachers - OK, they might not fit in your luggage but people who can come and spend a day doing an art project would be welcomed.
Medical Items
We spend a great deal of time and money on the childrens health. Due to the condtions of their home life it is common place for the children to join us with burns, cuts and skin conditions. Burns and cuts especially are common place as the children are often around open fires and broken glass. Some useful items that are continually in use are listed below.
1. Betadine Solution
2. Childrens Vitamins - We try and give additional vitamins to the children every day, the vitamins available locally are not designed for chidlren so we are always wanting child friendly vitamins brought over. We prefer Multi vitamins in a sweet chewable style as the children are happy to eat these at break time.
3. Head Lice shampoo, Nit combs are also very useful.
4. Alcohol Hand Sanatiser, this is great when treating the children's cuts and burns, as it kills a good selction of germs we always give ourhands a rub before treating the children.
5. Small Sterile bandages (2 or 3 inch) and gauze pads : We often have to wrap up severe burns to keep them protected from dust and dirt that would otherwise infect the wounds. Dry betadine sprays (that create a barrier) or spray on plasters are also generally useful to keep their sores clean.
6. Large Fabric Plasters, We find that cheaper plasters do not stick in the conditions in the slum, so we prefer fabric plastic that are stonger and have more sticking power. We often need larger plasters also as many burns/cuts get infected and the plasters are used to keep them clean.
Clothes
Clothes are great to bring, but please think about sizes and style before you pack. It would be a great help if you could seperate items out by packing in seperate plastic bags (for example girls tops, boys tops, boys trousers, girls trousers etc all in seperate bags so they're easier to sort here. If you want to help even more then wrapping them in sets would make a HUGE difference. Just a top and bottom together so we can just give it to a child of the same size. We do get lots of clothes and a lot of time is spent sorting them out to give to the children.
Here's a list of things to think about...
1. Girls - Girls are very modest in India and as such only feel comfortable in longer skirts/dresses. Many of the clothes we receive are very short mini skirts which really are not suitable and make the girls feel very self concious. If you are bringing skirts, please make sure they are longer than the knee, even better if they are full length. This isn't such a problem for the younger girls, but please remember that a 6 year old skirt in the UK might fit a 12 year old girl in India. Longer Dresses are Ideal!
2. Size - The children we help are small, the maximum size should really be to fit an Enlgish Boy/Girl of 12 to 13 years of age. This is likely to be ample for all the children we help.
3. No Adult Clothes (Please)- We do get a good deal of adult clothes, these aren't ideal as they tend to be far too large for the children and also too big for their parents. Anything not suitable is set aside to be given out to the rag pickers or for volunteers to wear in the garden etc. Sorting clothes is a huge job and would be made much easier if we did not receive adult clothes.
4. Underwear - underwear is a great thing to bring, but size is important. Most of the children wear underwear that is deigned for much younger children. The maximum age for underwear should really be 4 or 5 years (UK sizes).
5. No Socks -
We prefer not to receive socks as most of the children do not wear them as they either spend most of their time barefoot or with sandals on. We have had volunteers make trips up to colder regions in the North where they are welcomed, but these trips do not happen very frequently.
6. Bra's, we only really need small cup sizes or training bra's, again all the children and mothers generally have very small frames so larger cup sizes are not required.
7. Sandals - Footwear, simple sandals and flip flops are mostly used in India, any sizes below size 5 would be best.
8. Babies Clothes - Last year this was the most popular item for people to bring out, but again size is important!. We prefer to receive baby clothes for very small babies ( 0 to 6 months), tiny suits are good as we give them out in the government hospitals to the newly born babies. For items designed for babies older than one then seperate tops and bottoms are best, as all in one suits are generally too big.
Sweets
I am sure the children love sweets but we do not normally request sweets as they are very bad for the childrens teethand many of the children already have poor dental hygene and have huge holes in their teeth from decay.. If you are coming to Goa just before Christmas then we would be happy to accept them as we include a few sweets in their Christmas goodie bags, for the rest of the year we would recomend anyone who wants to bring sweets to instead buy some fruit for them if they visit the house. Otherwise bring sweats that have no sugar, or sweetlike vitamin tablets for children. |
