May 2005

Introduction
The end of the tourist season is now here, the last flights to the UK and many other countries have come and gone. Goa has turned into a ghost town with the majority of the shops and stalls in the tourist areas like Calangute and Candolim shut up for the monsoon.

As the tourists have stopped It has given us the opportunity to divert our attention to our first building, but as there still has been no sign of rain and the temperature is hanging around 35 degrees even the thought of manual work cleaning and sanding makes us sweat. But it has to be done….

We hope you enjoy this instalment of the newsletter and if you have any queries or comments then please contact us at .

Website
The website has had a few new additions this month, starting with two new sets of photographs, the first one named “School Pictures”. Many of you that read our newsletters probably had something more grand in mind when you read about our school in the slum, but as you can see from the photos, it’s all very basic, but the children love it and always want us to come back for more and beg us to be there on Saturdays and Sundays which we have as days off. The second set are “Pictures from the Slums” and include pictures of baby Akshay, Minisha and Krishma.

Pictures of the children aren’t the only things that have been updated on the website. Many people have asked for photographs of ourselves so that they will be able to recognise us when they visit Goa. We never wanted the charity to be about ‘us’ so have always kept behind the scenes, we never agreed with the people who have to jump infront camera especially when it comes to charity, so up until now we have kept a low profile but due to popular demand we’ve added the small section about ourselves and have reluctantly included a couple of photographs ( www.childrenwalkingtall.com/WhoWeAre.htm ). Please don’t laugh…

We have also managed to update our needs list as a couple of items have been purchased, but the main thing is that there are lots of new items which we need for the new house before it can be used as a drop in center or home.

The website continues to be popular, we have recently had viewers from the UK, India, Canada, Germany, Lativia, Finland, Ireland and the United States . Lots of people have found us since we started, over 7000 people have browsed our website since the middle of November, we started off with an average of 8 or 9 people visiting each day, but that is now an average of 47 people per day (taken from the past two months). The highest in one day being 133, if everyone who reads this visits our website today, maybe we could beat that! :o)

Fundraising
*How to Help* with fundraising
1. Please spread the word about Children Walking Tall. A simple way is to forward this newsletter to your friends and family asking them if they could find the time to read it and to visit our website.
2. If you work at a company that might sponsor any of our projects, please get in touch with us.
3. Be a member of our UK fundraising team by distributing leaflets or raising money. A good way is by finding something that you enjoy doing and have a fundraising event.
4. Have a look at the fundraising pack for ideas about how you can help.

Thank you to everyone!
We do try to thank everyone who helps us, occasionally someone might slip through the net without a thank you. If we haven’t mentioned you please accept our apologies, we are so grateful to everyone for all they do, the best thing to do is to send us an email and say ‘Hey! Can you put my name in the newsletter for …….’. Either that or just have a look at the smiles on the faces of the children in our photos, you’ll see they think the world of you! Thanks

Fruit Runs
Thank you to Heather and Dave Holland for donating money towards fruit for the children. Each week we try to take fruit to at least two of the slums in our area, as the children rarely have enough fresh fruit. As well as the standard oranges and bananas we have also given out mangos and coconuts this week that have fallen off the trees at our house and the new charity house.

Online Donations
Thank you to everyone who has supported us with online donations through the Givenow website ( http://www.cafonline.org/apps/Charities/CharityProfileLink.aspx?MainId=658399&SubId=638145&Source=CAF ). We have had an anonymous giver, but the ones we know about are; Ian, Laura, Fiona, Philip, Adrian and Sally. If you have donated recently you will be mentioned in next months newsletter as it takes a few days for the details to come through to us. Thanks

Music – Goan Style
Many thanks go out to Ian who has been kind enough to donate the money towards a music system for the children from our needs list. Ian visited our website and donated the money online. We will shortly be buying a music system for the house and possibly to also take to the slum to have dancing sessions with the children as they love their dance and music, as anyone who has seen a bollywood film will tell you.

The Italian Job
Maurizio volunteers for another charity over here in India but was still kind enough to give us a large bag of clothes and various other items for the children. He has been a good friend and we thank him and Marianne for their support, I’m sure we’ll see him again next season when he returns to help the children learn their Abc’s.

Members of HT
A big thank you goes out to all the HT members who joined Rob at Lazy Days last month, it was great to finally put faces to names and to meet everyone we've spoken to over the past few months. Unfortunately Shermina couldn’t make it after having to return to the UK, but Rob had a great time and was amazed with the support from everyone, a special mention goes out to Billy who made Rob get up and do a little speech (Thanks ;os) Everyone dipped into their purses and gave a donation and several people also bought the CWT T-Shirts. Thanks and we look forward to seeing you again next year as we all know you’re addicted to Goa.

Thank you to Peter and Billy
They were both a great help during their stay in Goa. They we kind enough to bring a large bag of items for the children, this included exercise books, pens, pencils cuddly toys and oxford mathematical sets, they also joined us on fruit runs to the slums. Since returning to the UK they have also ‘found’ us three old laptops that we will use to help the children with their general computer skills and to aid education. When the teacher isn’t looking, maybe they’ll have time for a game or two… :o)

Karen’s Goodies
Karen and family joined us here in Goa near the end of the season and didn’t quite get into last months newsletter, she was kind enough to bring a huge range of games, clothes and books,. Even now she’s collecting items for us which she is hoping to post to us. Thank you and look forward to seeing you again

What's Been Happening?

A little house in Goa
It’s been a long time coming but we have made an agreement on a property that will be used for the charity. It will be multifunctional acting as an office, storeroom and to start with a drop in center and then hopefully a home for the children in need. The house is not so small having a total of 9 rooms, and an extensive garden for the children to play in. We are hoping that children from the slums and those who live in the streets will join us for meals and education. The house is very old (probably over 100 years old) and is Portuguese in style which creates a beautiful looking house. The downside is that it needs a huge amount of work to clean it up and make it safe and fun for the children. For the last few weeks Shermina and Rob have been sanding, cleaning, washing, filing (metal), gardening, taking out windows, broken glass and painting. They have been helped along the way by Das, Ruby, Shakar and Jo, there’s still a long way to go but it is already looking so much better with a few dabs of paint and a good clean. At present the main concern is making it water proof as the monsoon is nearly upon us. So the roof and windows are the highest priority.

School in the Slums
The school in the slums has been going from strength to strength over the past few weeks. We had to have a holiday from lessons for one week as we were struggling for someone to take the lessons but we soon got back into the swing of things with both Rob and Shermina spending every afternoon with the children.

However, many of the children from the slum have returned to Karnataka for a break after the tourists left so the classes have been quite small compared to normal. Some days instead of having two small groups we have managed with one big lesson, with the older children helping the younger children with their work.

Two new volunteers who are training to be teachers in the UK have now taken over teaching in the slum. Both are using this as a placement for their university courses so we hope they can show us everything they have learnt so far and put it to work to make the school into a well oiled machine giving the children the right mix of education and fun to keep them coming back for more.

Doctors orders
It has been another busy month for visits to the doctors, during one week we were visiting the health center every day with a different child, many of them having high fevers. The first worry is Malaria and they all have blood samples taken and tests done, thankfully none of them had malaria but had passed around a nasty little bug, one was admitted for a few days until the fever had broken, I’d like to thank everyone at the health center for their help.

Welcome to our new Volunteers
We would like to say a warm welcome to Joanne, Ruby and Liz. The three all know each other in England. Liz unfortunately is only here for two weeks but she is a qualified teacher who I’m sure will bring lots of ideas and solutions for our school. Joanne and Ruby are both students at Bradford University studying to become primary school teachers. They will hopefully put to practice everything they have learnt during their studies and show us the latest teaching methods and styles. As well as helping in the school they are also helping with cleaning and sanding at the house, which isn’t quite their forte. We hope their time with us is enjoyable and that we don’t work them too hard.

Future Projects

Abseil
We are planning to have a sponsored Abseil, it will hopefully be taking place off the Millersdale bridge in Derbyshire, it’s an 80ft drop but from the top looks much higher. We are hoping to get as many sponsors as possible and Robert will hopefully join in on his return to England (Robert has a fear of heights :o). We don’t have any firm dates as yet but are hoping it will take place in late July or early August 2005. If you are interested in joining in and walking backwards off a perfectly good bridge and can find enough people to sponsor you and are physically up to the challenge (as there’s only one way to go once you’ve stepped over) then please contact us via email.

Woodingdean Carnival
One mans dream to help the children of India, John Elias has had terminal cancer for several years, but still manages to find the energy and life to help the children. He has had a few scares since Christmas and has been told he only had a few months to live but this does not stop his generous nature. On Saturday June 25th he will be running a Cake and Tombola stand at Woodingdean Carnival in aid of CWT, the event starts at 11am and will run till 5pm. So if you are in the area please support him.

School Items Required
For those who would like to bring things over for us we seem to be in desperate need of School exercise books, unfortunately they are relatively heavy and that is probably why we are short on them.  If many people bring a few books then that will definately help.  Thanks...

What you can do to HELP!!!
Perhaps you could make a difference in the lives of the children. Make a donation to Children Walking Tall. If you have a preference on how the money should be spent then please tell us, and we will try and make the money work the way you want it to.

Other ways to help are to donate clothes, books, pens and toys. This can be especially helpful if you’re planning a trip to Goa and can bring them with you. The easiest thing that you can do is tell others about what we do. The more people who know, the greater the chance we have of supporting children like these.

Do you have any comments about the newsletter? Would you prefer a shorter version? Would you like to see pictures in the newsletter (Email will be larger if pictures are added)? Please let us know what you would like, as we always want to improve what we do.

And Finally
If you would like to receive these monthly newsletters by email please contact us at Please put the subject “Join Newsletter” so that we can add your address to the mailing list. Send us the email address you wish the newsletter to go to. If you have received this email by mistake, or wish to cancel your monthly newsletter then please let us know by email at with the subject “Cancel Newsletter” Many Thanks from everyone at Children Walking Tall.

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