By Emily Parkes | Program Officer
Monisha Reaches Nationals!
We are so very proud of Monisha, who participated in the ICSE National Athletics Meet on 6th and 7th November. Monisha ran the 200m and came 4th in the heats. Back in September Monisha went straight through to competing at National level after taking 1st place against 47 other schools in Karnataka. Narrowly missing out on the finals, Monisha is continuing her training at Kanteerava Stadium three times a week under the guidance of a Personal Coach (an Asian Gold Medallist) and is working hard towards the next competitions!
The Stars at St. Michaels!
23 of our children study at St. Michaels English medium School. On the 15th and 17th November, our children took part in the Annual Sports Day, and once again stunned the Reaching Hand family by bringing home 55 medals! Together, all 23 children won 28 Gold, 12 Silver and 15 Bronze. Also a huge congratulations to Sneha, Leshini and Sigesh who are the new Individual Champions, bringing home 3 Championship Trophies!
Leshini and Sneha also took part in an Inter School Relay Competition at St. Charles’ School and came third place, winning the Bronze medal!
Settling in to their new Schools
The children have settled in well at their new schools, Capstone and Brighton Community Schools, both of which are English Medium Schools.
We have 7 children studying at Brighton School, and are delighted that our boy Prem Kumar (7th Standard) has been selected as Head Boy! We are happy to report a very positive response from the teachers, who were very impressed by the children in the first parent and teachers meetings. All the children are doing a fantastic job in their academics and sports, as well as enjoying the extra-curricular activities on offer there, such as Karate. Another 12 students are studying in Capstone Community School, a new school that only recently opened, Capstone offers more individual attention to our children who need it. They offer a host of activities in their lovely campus, such as home sciences, gardening, and music. In November, the Capstone children celebrated Children’s Day by visiting to a local old age home, where they brought small gifts to give the elderly. Esther has especially shone in school, and has been selected as class monitor, as well as extra responsibilities such as organising the Teacher’s Day event!
As Long As You Love Me
Our volunteers have been working hard on creating a special video of some of our children covering their favourite song ‘As Long As You Love Me’ by Justin Bieber. All thanks to the tremendous efforts of Davin Lama (Beatboxer), Shaktiraj Singh Jadeja (Film maker), Smita (Arts and crafts), Low Rhyderz (Hip hop group) and Jacob Cherian (volunteer) who was the creative force behind the whole project. The children clearly connect to the words in the song and made their own version. They had a fabulous time putting together the performance, as can be seen throughout the video! Please do take a look by following the link below.
We even made it to the social news site BuzzFeed in America! Check out our page by following the BuzzFeed link and be sure to share it amongst your friends!
All the funds raised from this video are going towards the building of the children’s permanent home. The New Home will be expanded to house up to 100 children in need and will offer a much bigger living space to our children! The plot of land is slowly being developed and we hope to start constructing soon! Please consider donating on Bonus Day to raise funds for this huge project.
Bonus Day!
On the 2nd December, we are participating in Microsoft YouthSpark GivingTuesday on GlobalGiving. For 24 hours we will be competing for "most donors" and "most funds raised" bonus prizes. Additionally, all donations made to our project from the U.S or from the U.K will be matched 100% up to $500 (£300) per donor per project while funds remain. Funds will go quickly, so be sure to set your alarm clocks to make your dollar go further to support our cause!
Important information:
Please do consider making a Christmas donation to our children, while the funds have the potential to be doubled!
Looking Ahead….
We are fast approaching the Festive Season, and can’t believe how quickly 2014 has passed! To celebrate Christmas this year we are planning a fun day for the children and they are very much looking forward to their holidays and are working hard on a Christmas performance with a special ‘Jingle hip-hop’ dance! To keep up to date with the children’s activities, please do follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Wishing you happy holidays during the Christmas Season, and again a huge Thank You from all at Reaching Hand! Please do continue to share our cause and contribute to the lives of our children, YOU and your collective efforts make it all a possibility!
With Warm Regards from the Reaching Hand Team
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
