Introduction
Things just keep getting busier here in Goa. The difference from this time last year is amazing. Many of you reading this might not realise that Children Walking Tall is only just over a year old. Everyone sees us as a large organisation, but we are just a small group of like-minded people wanting to make a difference in the lives of these children. At the present time there are Robert and Shermina who started the charity, and Denise who volunteers for us in the UK and handles our UK office. We also have a few long term volunteers; Claudia, Sophie, Kim, and Antonella who are here for 6 months,

It all started in September last year when Robert came over to Goa to research and set down the roots for Children Walking Tall in India. The first real contact we had with the slums was a year ago on Christmas day when CWT gave out 150 presents at three slums. Currently our volunteers are working in two slums every weekday and visiting eight others to give out fruit and clothes. Much of the last 6 months has been spent bringing a house that had not really been lived in for 20 years back to life. The Mango House is nearly ready to accept children. It has been a hard struggle with everyone giving their all to make a place that a few children can call home, and many more a place to rest and relax. Unfortunately the house being ready isn’t the only thing holding back the sound of children’s footsteps gracing the large rooms. Since the introduction of the Goa Children’s Act in 2003 all new children’s homes are required to be inspected by an inspection team headed by the Additional Collector in Panjim. We applied for this inspection two months ago and are still waiting for a date. As with everything in Goa we need to be very patient. We have tried all tactics to encourage a speedy solution, including showing photos of children we could be helping, who are beaten by their drunken fathers, but none of this has yet helped. We have, however, been told that the inspection will take place soon, although this might just be another false hope. If anyone reading this knows of anyone who can help speed this process along we would be delighted to hear from you.

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 several updates this month including new pictures, updates to the needslist and a new item called ‘tHe Big ChariTy BoX’ (we need your help with this one!). Below is a list of the changes to the website.

http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Needslist.htm

http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/CharityBox.htm
tHe Big ChariTy BoX is a new scheme set up to raise money for UK Registered charities. If you want to give to charity without donating money yourself then this is the IDEAL way and would be a great Christmas present for Children Walking Tall. All you need to do is cast a vote for us. The more people who cast votes the more money we will receive at the end of the year. The more votes we get the more money the children will receive. Therefore we are asking as many people as possible to vote. We hope to guarantee a place at the top of the supported charities list, so please ask friends and family to vote for us too. The further up the list we are the more money ' tHe Big ChariTy BoX' will give Children Walking Tall. If you work in a large company how about asking 'The Boss' if you can make Children Walking Tall the charity of the year and get all your fellow employees to vote. This way we can be the charity of the year without costing yourself or the company a penny!

Please visit http://www.bigcharitybox.com/user_register.php and register to be able to vote for Children Walking Tall. All you need is a unique user name, a password (NOT YOUR EMAIL PASSWORD - Best to keep the password to simple alphanumeric characters!) and finally your email address. The Big Charity Box will then send you an email with a link in it once a month.

Once you click on the link in the email that's sent to you, the box to fill in our name is displayed on the right. You can type or copy the text below into the box (it's best to type the last character in manually as it doesn't always find it).

children walking tal

or another option is to use our Registered Charity Number (in the box near the bottom)

1106528

It should then list the charity in blue in the list box, click on this and then press the Submit Vote button. Hey presto, you've voted for Children Walking Tall. If possible repeat this every month for the next 12 months so that we can raise as much money as possible for Children Walking Tall

http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/ChristmasCard.htm
Instead of wasting paper and money on physical cards, Children Walking Tall has made an electronic card that has been sent to everyone on our newsletter list. If you would like to receive the newsletter each month then please email us with the subject ‘Join Newsletter’. A copy of the Christmas card has also been put on our website for everyone to access. Merry Christmas! (Belated)

http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Volunteer-Experiences.htm
Another volunteer has signed the Volunteer experiences page, the latest being Kirsty who is a paramedic in the UK. We’re hoping that on her return she will be able to manage a health program for the slums.

http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Volunteering.htm
We get lots of people wanting to volunteer for us and have a large section on the website dedicated to giving the volunteers the information they need to be able to make the right choices before coming out. If you’re interested in volunteering in the next year then please make sure we get your CRB application as soon as possible as it can take around 2 months to come through. The latest advice to be added to the website is a small section about what injections and preventative methods are advised before volunteering. Your local chemist at home can also give you advice on what you might need.

http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Newsletters.htm
Unfortunately we have to cut back on what we do on the website due to the volume of other work we have on at the moment. The ‘News’ Section will be suspended until we have enough time to update it regularly. Don’t worry we will be fitting in as much news as possible into the monthly newsletters so you won’t be missing out on anything.

http://www.childrenwalkingtall.com/Pictures6.htm
These are a mixture of pictures taken throughout November. Some are from a wash day at Karaswada slum where our volunteers bathed the children to help prevent some of the minor diseases. Others are from various visits to Sinquerium slum, some are from a day when visitors brought woolly hats for all the children, and the rest are from when children have been visiting the house.

http://www.childrenwalkingtall.com/Pictures7.htm
Christmas was celebrated early on Christmas Eve as Children Walking Tall volunteers and visitors went out to several slums giving out Christmas presents to the children. Please read ‘What’s been happening for more details and also click on the link to see the pictures from Christmas Eve.

This months stats from our website :

Another milestone for the website is that there have been over 100,000 page loads in the last year – Currently 105,077. We would also like to say hello to our visitors from all over the globe, it’s great to find even more people finding our website. Just out of three days this month we have had visitors from Spain, Poland Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Germany, United States, Hungary, India, Sweden, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Philippines, Argentina, Finland and of course the UK.

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!
There have been so many visitors coming to the Mango house this month, some joining us for the Christmas celebrations, some helping with fruit runs and some just wanting to drop off clothes and toys for the children. We try our best to say thank you to everyone who helps, if not in this newsletter, then in person or by email. If we have forgotten to say thank you then please let us know. We are always happy to mention our supporters in the newsletter, this is especially good if gifts have been given by friends or family and they want to check up that we have received them. If we have neglected to mention your name this month and you think we’ve forgotten you then please accept our apologies, we are so grateful for all that you do. The best course of action 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!

Online Donations
Last month we only had the one online donation, but we are really pleased to say this month has seen much more activity online. We would like to say thank you to Mike, Ann & John, Patricia, Teresa, Debbie, Fiona, Shari, Ian, Anne Marie, Kathleen, Nancy, Joyce, Kay & Jack, Steve, PL & CH, and Ifzal for their kind donations. If you would like to donate money towards anything from our needslist or would like to just give money for the general running of the charity then please let us know. We are always in need of donations, if you would like to make a standing order (monthly donation) then please visit our donation page or contact our UK office for more information.

Christmas Cards
Thank you to everyone who raised money instead of sending Christmas cards this year. Many of you sent out the Children Walking Tall Christmas card to friends and family instead of paying their money to card companies. Thank you to Rose and everyone at the Creative Craft Club (Houghton-le-Spring) who let us know about their fundraising efforts. Thanks!

School Donations

Newton Hill J&I school - Special thanks to the children of class 5H at Newton Hill J&I school who raised money by selling buns in school. The funds were used to purchase a tree for our garden and a notice board from our needs list. Thanks also for making us your charity of the year. We look forward to your continued support over the next twelve months.

Nottingham High School - Mr Ruff's tutor set at Nottingham High School has been working hard raising funds for Children Walking Tall for the last few months. They are based just down the road from our UK office and we welcome their continued support. We will be visiting them shortly to collect a cheque from them, thank you so much for your help.

Wellesley School in Yate - Grace and her school friends are always doing their bit for Children Walking Tall, her family come out to Goa at least once a year and each time they bring more and more clothes and shoes for the children in the Slums. We hope that maybe one day Grace and her friends will be able to make it to Goa to meet the children that they work so hard to help. Thank you Grace and friends from Wellesley School in Yate.

Hasland Hall – Thank you to everyone from Hasland who has been supporting us, many of the children and teachers know Shermina personally as this is where she worked last year before coming out to start Children Walking Tall. We have kept good links and thank them for their continued support.

Beech House School – Linda came to see us and brought lots of old school uniforms from Beech House School in Rochdale. Linda had ‘posted’ a message about wanting to collect clothes for children in India, a mother (Alison) from the school got in touch with Linda and introduced her to the school, who were happy to give the uniforms. We would like to thank Linda, Alison and of course Beech House School for their support.

Sponsored Walk and Christmas Ball
Thank you to Sital Odedra for working so hard in raising money for CWT. On Sunday 27th November a group took part in a 15-mile sponsored walk from Bradgate Park up to Old John (a tower on a hill in Bradgate). A Christmas Ball was also organised on the 10th December, raising a combined total of £1000! Sital has been over during the Christmas celebrations and joined in giving presents out on Christmas Day and later came to the Christmas party.

Keeping It Clean
Anne and John who came to Goa on holiday last month came to meet us at ‘The Mango House’. They had raised some money in England and wanted to know what to spend it on. We suggested buying toiletries for the children so they can improve their personal hygiene.

Toiletries were given out to all the families at the slum, the items left over will be kept to be used at The Mango house once it opens it’s doors as a drop in centre. We continue to try and educate the children in the importance of keeping themselves clean, it’s a slow process as they soon slip back into their old ways.

Donations, Clothes, Cuddly Toys, Toiletries & Other Goodies!
Everyone has been so generous during the festive season. We have had lots of visitors to The Mango House; many have brought clothes and toys, books and other items for the children. One day was especially manic with 3 sets of people bringing in boxes and bags. We have been kept busy sorting the clothes into ages and sizes, in the next few weeks we will be making a big effort to try and get most of the new items out to the children who need it.

It’s been really hard to keep track of everybody; some of the ones that need thanking are Rachel & Daniel, Sital, Barbara, Sonny & Showkat, Mrs Jennings and Mrs Holmes, Ann and John, Lin and Davy, Dave, Heather and Dave, Donald, Keith and Sharon, Avril and Max, Alys, Tavinder, Vanessa, Tracy, Colin, Shari, Sarah (Special Mention as she brought us lots of English Cheese for us! :o), Mandy and Mick, Ann, Carol, Sharron, Gaynor, Ifzal, Julie, Ash & Bal, Eileen, Stuart, Chris, Francis and all at Kokino hairdressing.

Thanks also to Melanie and the Education Department at South Gloucester Council. Melanie is having a break from work and coming to volunteer for us in January. We look forward to seeing her and hope she has a good time.

Stuart, another of our volunteers brought out items collected by the parents and children of Diss Church Junior School. Thanks to Keith & Sharon for bringing out a bag of goodies for the children. In it were various items that will be used as stocking fillers for Christmas, as well as lots of clothes. There was even a special gift for one little boy which was a boxed pair of baby football boots and a small football. Thanks also for helping to sort clothes on your visit to The Mango House.

Thank you to Silvia and all her colleagues at Sainsburys for bringing over a suitcase full of clothes, colouring pencils and sweets. Unfortunately we missed you when you visited the house, but hopefully we will get to meet you before you return to chilly England.

It has been a busy month and the support has been great, thank you to everyone who has helped.

Raffle
Thanks to Albert and Gillian from Lancashire who held a raffle and raised £240. They are also joining us in Goa for their holidays and bringing more goodies for the children.

The Slums
We have had several ‘fruit runs’ to the slums just recently, many have been funded directly by visitors who ask to visit the wholesale market before taking the trip to the school. Fruit is an excellent way to help the children as it filling and full of natural goodness. I’m sure the children much prefer ‘chocolate’ but as many never see a dentist then chocolate and sweets should be kept to a minimum to keep their teeth in good health.

Needs List

Bathroom Doors and Tiles - Thanks to our German friends Juffi, Hacki, Hans and Belinda for purchasing 4 bathroom doors from the needs list this month, Louise, Sam, Barbara and Christian from Munich also helped by purchasing the tiles for the bathroom. Their donations were brought to us via Barbara who visited the Mango House and helped Rob update the German website.

Well Well Well - Shari came over to join us in Goa recently, while in England she managed to raise enough money to pay for the well cleaning and also had money extra to put towards the water cooler for the house. We would like to thank Shari, Warwick Emmanuel and Dwr Cymru Welsh Water for all their help with fundraising.

Outside Lights – Thank you to Fiona from HT for purchasing an outside light for the house. This will give us the opportunity to have more events outside once the house is open

Time to Reflect - Teresa paid for the bathroom mirrors so the children could admire themselves for hours. (which I’m sure they will!) They love to see their reflections and try and make themselves look like the ‘bollywood’ stars.

Red Cement Floor – One of the rooms in the Mango house had an old style cow pat floor when we moved in. Kath has donated the money to pay for the new cement floor that has replaced it. This will make it much easier to keep clean and safe for the children.

Reception Table – A small table was required for the reception room, Ann & John were kind enough to get this for the house. We now use it for our visitors book and leaflets. Please remember if you visit to give a comment in the book and say how you found ‘The Mango House’, staff, volunteers and children.

Garden Plants – Newton Hill J&L School Class 5H have allowed us to pay for the first new trees for the Mango house garden. For the last few weeks the garden has gone from strength to strength as the weeds are cut down and the garden shaped into something resembling a garden rather than a forest. Melanie and Pip have also helped by buying the rest of the trees for Melanie's Father Dave's 65th birthday , we will now be able to have a full compliment of trees included Chicko, Lime and Sweet lime.

Medicine – We were lucky to meet up with Sabs and Amos who emailed us before they arrived, Amos is a registered doctor in the UK and as part of his holiday he wanted to provide medical assistance to the children in the slums. Since arriving he has given the children full ‘check ups’ and helped purchase and administer the inoculations from our website. We are hoping this will protect the children and reduce the number of problems in the future. He has also been instructing Shermina, Claudia and Rob on best practice and medical techniques in the case of an emergency. He has spent 4 solid days working with us and helping the children at 3 of the slums. Unfortunately there is sometimes nothing that can be done to reverse the children’s illnesses, one young girl has Polio that has affected her whole body, her muscles have wasted away to a point where she needs help to eat and stand. All we could do is suggest physiotherapy and give food supplements to keep her energy levels up. The family she comes from will only be in Goa for another month as they plan to move on to Maharashtra.

Enfield Bullet - Donation
We took the children from one of our schools on a beach trip this month (please read more about this later). During the day a man (Alan) came up to us and spoke to Shermina, he had been travelling for most of the year around India and was nearly at the end of his stay. He had bought an Enfield Bullet to do his travelling and as he was leaving wanted to give it away to a worthy cause. We were more than happy to accept the gift. He has given us permission to use it or sell it to raise funds for Children Walking Tall. It’s a lovely bike but we are looking into selling it to perhaps help raise money for a minibus or something that is in greater need. Alan spent a few days with us and helped at the slum as he is a paediatrician in his own country. Thank you Alan for all your help and also your generosity.

Volunteers
Unfortunately we have had to say goodbye to a few volunteers this month, Kate and Lisa joined us a couple of months ago, they were originally going to work for another charity, but only spent one day with them before ringing us up and saying, please can we come to you! They both live in Canada and have been teaching and entertaining the children at the Sinquerium school. Kirsty has also left this month, she has been a great help since she arrived as she is also a trained paramedic. She has given us guidance on our health visits and also on her return in a couple of months will hopefully manage the health of the children in the slums for us.

Not everyone is leaving though, in the last month we have had lots of interest in volunteer positions. Today only we’ve had 5 new volunteers arrive but more about them next month. Holly and Alex joined us just before Christmas are have been helping us at the schools and also The Mango house over the Christmas period. They are hoping to start lessons this week after settling into their new apartment.

What's Been Happening?

A Lovely Email
We recently received a lovely email from Tina de Souza who lives close to The Mango House. We decided to share some of its contents with you ….

“First and foremost let me say Hats Off to the extraordinary work you guys are doing!! It takes a whole lot of determination and will power. I live a stones throw away from "The Mango House" in Karaswada. I remember a couple of years ago how run down and ram shackled the place was, but last month it looked absolutely different and I saw this gentleman sitting on the steps and I thought to myself, how awfully rich he must be to transform this place and then I saw the 3 little kids and thought, how awfully rich he is in his heart. I wanted to know what the 3 little kids stood for and the more information I gather the more touched I am for all the hard work put in by you guys, especially people coming from so far to help us out and the irony being, we living a stone's throw away don't really bother. The next time I pass the Mango House I would love to stop by and say Thank you.” - Thank you Tina for your kind words of support and encouragement.

Excess Luggage
The support we have seen with the run up to Christmas has been great. We have had so many people bring out clothes, toys, shoes and school equipment (pens and pencils) in the last month, the last two weeks especially. We have been overjoyed to receive it but have been caught unaware by the generosity of people. After the clothes donations we gave out last month the store room was looking bare, but it has been transformed into an oasis of clothes that we will give out in the next few weeks. We were unable to give out to the rest of the slums we help here in Goa due to not having enough clothes in a variety of sizes. We should now be able to help these and also give a large distribution in Bombay when we visit there just after Christmas. It has been impossible to thank everyone this month, but you know who you are and I will make sure that we take plenty of photos so you never know, the shirt, skirt or trousers you gave might be shown being worn by a boy or girl in Bombay or Goa. Thank you to EVERYONE who has donated anything this year.

Cleaning Up at the slums
The volunteers have started a cleaning up programme at the slums. It became apparent something had to be done as many of the children were being infected by skin infections like scabies and impetigo. The volunteers showed the children how to bathe properly and also dressed any open wounds to prevent infection. The children were then pampered by having their nails cut and sharp edges taken off, a good scrub to remove the final dirt from their nails. Soap was given to all the families and toothbrushes to all the children; we are hoping they will continue to use these with the aim of stamping out many of the skin problems they face.

Beach Trip
We were lucky enough to be able to take the children from our School in Karaswada on a beach trip this month. It was all organised by the volunteers who teach there. They organised the transport, food and most importantly the children. Thirty two children ended up getting permission from their parents to join us. Claudia organised the bus which came to pick them up at 1 o’clock. The bus itself was lovely, not like most buses in Goa which are nearly falling apart. It was brand new and that in itself was great for the children to experience. On the day we had one volunteer for every three children which was plenty. We hoped to go where there wouldn’t be too many tourists so as not to put the children on show, unfortunately the beach was a little busier than we imagined, but we were able in most part to do what we went for which was to make a fun day out for the children. There were lots of games on the beach, some louder than others, the hokey cokey was great fun (and one of the louder games as a huge circle ran in on each other in one big scream). Other good parts of the day were the swimming session, the tug of war and, of course, the relay races. Everyone enjoyed themselves and lots of people from the slum came out to meet the returning bus. Thank you to all the volunteers for putting so much effort into making it such a successful day.

Sangie
We are happy and also sad about our first child to live here at the Mango House. We were greeted one day at a slum with the horrifying news that one of the fathers of the children had come home drunk the previous evening, kicked his daughter and then pushed his daughters arm into a vat of boiling curry. We arrived at the slum at 10 am in the morning and found that the child had been left since 8pm the previous night with no treatment. We quickly rushed her to the nearest hospital and were amazed by the courage of the 5 year old. Her arm was badly burnt and had several large blisters covering her arm, the biggest being around 2 – 3 inches long, the hospital requested that we look after the child, so the same day we managed to get special permission from Women and Child to take the child into our care. We continued to look after Sangie until the wounds had healed sufficiently for her to be returned to her parents in the slum. Sangie has made an excellent recovery and she enjoyed her time at The Mango House. It was difficult for her to return home, but we are glad to report that her father has stopped drinking, for the moment at least, and we will monitor the situation and make sure nothing like this happens again. She was a joy to look after and will be missed as she brought the house alive with her laugh and her shouting ‘Claudia’ to everyone. (Claudia is one of our volunteers and was the first name she learnt, from that moment, at least every fifth word she would say was ‘Claudia’….). There have been other emergency’s at the same slum this month, there has been a young girl having a severe fit, all her family was screaming, thankfully we took her for medical treatment and all ended well. Another young boy had Jaundice and malnutrition. All have been treated, we’re hoping it will be a quieter month in January.

Christmas is a time for giving
Christmas has been incredibly busy this year, it was this time last year we had the first real contact with all the children on one day as we gave out around 150 presents to 3 slums. This year we wanted to go that bit further and our target was to give out 500 presents. It was a close call as nearly all the soft toys that had been given over the last 12 months were being wrapped and given as presents, the total was at around 450 on Christmas Eve and we had reached a plateau… We were toy-less… Just in the nick of time visitors came with presents galore, many already wrapped. In the end we had over 550 presents wrapped and ready to be shipped out. It wasn’t just presents that we gave out, we also gave over 1500 pieces of fruit, 550 balloons, pens, pencils, sweets, party poppers and lots more.

Christmas day started early, actually about 18 hours early in fact as we did our first present runs on Christmas Eve. We had so many presents to give out, we knew it would nearly impossible to do it all on one day. Christmas Eve started by buying lots and lots of fruit, 4 large stalks of bananas 550 oranges, 4 boxes of apples pineapples, water melons, papaya, and finally grapes. All the volunteers came in to help on the day, many were making up goodies bags that included the pieces of fruit, pens, pencils sweets, balloons and more. Others were wrapping the final presents to give out.

We were lucky enough to have Santa Claus (Better known as Jim) join us on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day even though he had a hectic schedule himself. He came suited up in his standard red suit, but traded his warm boots for sandals. The first two slums we visited were on newly created sites near The Mango House. Many of the families there were travelling through from different states, the children looked different to most that we had helped before and their names differed too. We had already been to visit them on several occasions giving out fruit so we were welcomed with shouts and screams as the convoy of taxi’s pulled up bulging with presents. There were only about 30 children at this slum (to start with) so it was an easy start for the volunteers and helpers.

Straight away the children lined up and were each given a goodie bag, the longer we were there the more and more children arrived and we ended up giving out around 50 to 60 goodies bags. The next 5 hours were taken up driving Santa to various slums around Goa.

By the time we had finished on Christmas Eve it was starting to get dark, but we knew we had to do it all again on Christmas day.

Christmas morning started at seven o’clock and we visited 6 slums, it was a great day and had lots of smiles throughout the day. Most of the children were a little unsure what to do with the presents and wanted to take them home before opening them. It was a joy to be part of and we would like to thank everyone who made it possible, all of Santa’s little helpers organised the children extremely well and made sure every child left with a present and a huge smile on their face. Some of the visitors who helped have said it was the best Christmas they had ever spent.

Thanks to Jim & Sam, Jim and Pauline, Sital, Lin B and all of our volunteers.

The Christmas party
Wow, what a great way to end Christmas Day. Everyone was pretty shattered from driving round the slums and giving out so many presents over the previous two days so the thought of coming straight back and sorting out food for 80 children and volunteers was not quite what everyone had hoped to be doing.

Once the children arrived we had a quick game of find the parcel. We had a handful of presents left so we hid them around the forest for the children to find. They were very eager and the game was over in a matter of minutes. The children were then joined by another set from a second slum which brought the total up to 80 children. Everyone was so excited many seeing the Mango house for the first time, they ran around looking at all the paintings on the wall and admiring themselves in the mirrors in the bathroom. We then had a few games of pass the parcel and lots of dancing to the children’s favourite song ‘Dhoom’ All they really wanted was this one song, again and again and again….. The meal was given out at around 6pm, it was simple curry, rice, samosa, potatoe wado, bread and for desert fruit salad with ice cream. All the plates were cleared and they loved the food. The day was fantastic, although draining trying to control 80 slum children. It has definitely given us a lot to think about on how the house works full of children. As many of the children hadn’t seen proper toilets before the bathroom breaks were definitely an adventure for them. The party went on until about 9 – 9.30 finishing off with yet another few songs of Dhoom. The children were greeted by their parents on their return. A special thank you to all the volunteers (especially those who stayed till the end :o) Below is how Alex one of our new volunteers found the party

Christmas Party at the Mango House, written by Alex
Christmas morning saw a lot of activity at The Mango House. Decorations were hung up, goody bags were made, presents were wrapped, fruit was chopped up, and our lungs were seriously tested blowing up an endless number of balloons!! By around 4pm everything was finally ready and the children began to arrive. The gardens around the house were soon awash with colour with many of the kids dressed in their best party clothes! There was lots of laughter, chatter, dancing and music as the volunteers led the kids in games of pass-the-parcel, musical statues, football, ring-a-ring-a-roses, and much more! The children enjoyed posing for photos and were very excited to see the instant images on digital cameras! It was certainly an unusual and unforgettable Christmas to be playing with so many children in the Goan sunshine! What better Christmas gift could there be than seeing the smiles on so many young faces?!

Future Projects

Fruit
We appreciate all sweets that are brought out for the children but as malnutrition is extensive in the slums we work in we would prefer that visitors bring fruit or provide money so that we can buy more fruit at whole sale rates to give to the children

In memory of Zara
It was a year ago when Iris joined us to give out presents on Christmas Day, She came to Goa bringing presents, clothes and lots of support to help the children in Goa. She had a great time and has continued to keep in touch ever since. On her return to England the worst happened as her daughter passed away over night from illness. Zara, her daughter, was generally in perfect health and full of life so it was very hard to come to terms with. When I returned to England I went to see Iris and saw the flat that she had bought for her daughter to live in, this flat is now part of a competition to raise money that will partly go to Children Walking Tall. If you would like to be part of this or want to know more then please visit their website ( www.win-your-home.com ). It’s simple, just pay £20, answer a few general knowledge questions and you could be the new owner of a flat near the sea in Bournemouth. The competition will start on the 6th of January.

Mumbai Street Children
In the next couple of weeks, a group of volunteers will be travelling up to Mumbai to give out clothes, fruit and presents for the children who live on the streets in Mumbai. More to come next month….

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.

Click Below For Direct Links