Author: Roman Bansen

In an interim report on the Slum Centres project, which has been started in October 2019, our Indian partners – the YMCA Ranchi and Sarjom – have sent up-to-date information on the progress of the renovation of the centres. By now, 2 of the 3 centres have been renovated:

Slum Centre “Kadru Phooltoli”

Before the work began, all teaching materials, equipment and 16 sewing machines had to be temporarily removed from the centre. During the entire repair work the students went to another, former slum centre for their courses. A total of 12 workers were involved in the various phases of the work. First, the old roof sheets were removed and replaced with the new GI steel sheets. This took about four days.

Then the new cement flooring was produced, for which the former floor had to be broken up and the rubble removed. Necessary repairs to the walls, windows and doors were carried out before the walls were covered with a new fine cement plaster with a smooth surface. Finally, the painting work was carried out inside and outside and two new black boards were installed in the room. Just before Christmas, the work in Kadru Phooltoli was eventually completed.

Slum Centre “Jagannathpur Centre”

Like the work in Kadru Phooltoli, the repair work in the Jagannathpur Centre also began with the removal of the old roof panels. The asbestos plates, which had not been changed for 40 years, already had several cracks. Within four to five days the roofing panels were replaced with GI steel sheets and the new roof was installed.

The regular lessons for the children could be continued during the working period, because the neighbouring community of the North Western GEL Church provided their rooms for the pre-school. On January 24, 2020, the Jagannathpur Centre was reopened and the children resumed their pre-school education at the centre, now in a new and attractive surrounding.

As every year on the Sunday of the first Advent weekend, we attended the christmas market in Alt-Marzahn, Berlin.

At our booth many visitors informed themselves about our project work, warmed themselves up with a hot cup of tea or acquired small Christmas presents like our new calendars for a small donation.

Basti has once again taken countless photos on his long travels through India and we have selected the most beautiful ones for the new calendar 2020. Month after month the diversity of India shows on these beautiful A3 wall calendars.

If you are interested, we would be pleased to receive a donation of 10 € (shipping within Germany for an additional 4 €). To order, simply write us an e-mail or a message on Facebook. Please do not forget the quantity and postal address. Of course, in many cases a personal delivery or pickup is possible. We would be happy if you support our projects in India by acquiring the calendars.

Thanks to a generous donation of the Berlin-based association Die Kappe e.V., educational umbrella organisation for the Creativity School Centre Berlin, we were able to start the new Project ‘Slum Centres’ in cooperation with the YMCA Ranchi in 2019. The goal is to support educational work in the urban slums of Ranchi. The so called slum centres have been operated by the YMCA in the social hot spots of the growing city for many years. Especially children from poor families are being enabled to receive an education this way.

Together with SARJOM, our Indian partner organisation, the YMCA Ranchi wants to increase the quality of the educational centres within this joint project. They will prepare the preschool children for school in playful and creative ways. This does particularly encompass large-scale repair works of the centres, which are currently in a bad state of repair, as well as their redesign in a way appropriate for the children.

A year goes by so fast. Yesterday Rimil, participant in the South-North exchange of the weltwärts programme, successfully completed his volunteer service with us and returned to his home country India.

We would like to thank Rimil very much for his volunteer work and his support of the Indian Forum here on site in Berlin, and we look forward to a further close cooperation with him.

Sporty pupils of the Tagore High School (Gymnasium) in Berlin-Marzahn gave their all at this year’s endurance run for the sports action day.

All in all, they have raised about 95 € in donations for the Indian Forum. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you very much.

At this year’s harvest festival in mid September in Alt-Marzahn, Berlin, the Indian Forum once again had an own booth. Despite the bad weather, many visitors came for a stroll over the festival grounds and stopped by to try an Indian Chai or acquire small souvenirs from India.

This time the people’s generosity was pleasantly high and our association was able to earn around 200 € in donations.

In mid January, the new Martha Kindergarten in Chaibasa has finally been finished and inaugurated with about 150 guests.

The last weeks before the opening have seen a lot of stressful work, in order to finish as much as possible on time. For this purpose, several members of our partner organisation SARJOM, the current ‘weltwaerts’ volunteers, as well as one ex-volunteer had come from Ranchi.

The kindergarten committee in Chaibasa decided relative spontaneous that a “small” opening ceremony with the members of the congregation could be held on Sunday. A “big” inauguration is planned for March, when a partner group from the Lichtenberg-Oberspree church district will be on visit in Chaibasa, amongst them also the kindergarten initiator Helga Ottow. The goal is to finish all remaining works until then.

The first children are coming to kindergarten regularly since 15th January 2019, and the business has officially started. A big relief not only for the parents, but also for the kindergarten teachers which, due to several delays, had already waited for quite some time to start their practical work.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of our association’s official founding, we conducted our long planned members trip to India in November 2018. Seven new and old members visited different places in this amazing country, with a focus on our project area in the state of Jharkhand. There, the German travel group took part in the Gossner Mission Day in Ranchi, participated in a church inauguration in Gowindpur, and visited the Martha Kindergarten in Ranchi, where currently two German volunteers of the ‘weltwaerts’ program are working. The most important part of the trip was the two day visit to Chaibasa, where most of our projects are located. Amongst other things there, we organized a meeting with the children and adolescents of the scholarship program, during which we ate and played together, but also found time to talk about individual problems with the students.