| Dear Friends |
September 2005
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| This newsletter is something of a departure from the usual newsletter you get from me but I thought it was good for you to hear someone else’s in-depth opinion of our work; someone who has never before seen our operation, one of a group of 12 young people who spent five weeks with us under the banner of La Sallian Developing World Projects.
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| Suffice to say here at RTU we are as busy as ever. Our latest project is to build 100 houses in a drastically poor village not far away. This we have started and more news of this later. I trust I shall write to you as usual for the Christmas newsletter.
Brother James Kimpton
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| “On the evening of 12th July 11 ruck-sack laden individuals from England and Scotland arrived at Dindigul railway station to be met by a tall white man by the name of Brother James Kimpton and a couple of his Indian friends. Dindigul is in the South Indian District of Tamil Nadu, a 7 hour train journey south from Madras. An hour’s road journey later we were at what was to be our home for the next 5 weeks – the Children’s Village of Anbu Illam in the village of G. Kallupatti. |
| Readers of previous Newsletters will be familiar with the organisation “Reaching the Unreached” (RTU) and all that it does for the welfare of the community, especially for the children in the area. However, we were not so familiar; or to be more precise most of us had heard about or read about RTU from its website and other sources of information. But that was all it was – information. The experiences we were going to have over the following weeks cannot adequately be put into an information sheet –they were a combination of the 5 senses and the “just being there”. |
| The team of 11 consisted of volunteers of the Lasallian Developing World Projects, a UK organisation begun in 1985 and associated with the Order of De La Salle Brothers. Our purpose as members of a Project is to become involved with the local people of a particular town or village in countries of Africa and Asia for a period of about 5 weeks in July and August and jointly embark on a building project – whether it be building school classrooms, teacher’s accommodation, community facilities or housing. The invitation comes from the local community in the developing world country and in this case the connection was Brother James who is a De La Salle Brother and founder of and inspiration for RTU. |
| We were asked to help with the construction of 12 houses for families in Kallupatti as part of and a contribution to the Rural Housing programme of RTU’s outreach work. The building work itself might be considered to be relatively straightforward! On the first day we demolished with great ease the huts made of sticks and woven coconut leaves; in the weeks that followed we dug footings and filled them with rocks and stones; built the walls out of hollow cement blocks; roofed them with metal frames and cement tiles; hung concrete doors and window shutters; dug septic tanks; and decorated the houses with blue whitewash. You could have any colour you wanted as long as it was blue! (all the materials were made in RTU’s compound by the local people providing them with a source of income) |
| On the last of our working days we had the privilege of being part of the individual “house warming parties”. A very quaint but deeply meaningful ceremony of lighting candles, cracking open a coconut, and sharing a cup of warm milk, cake and fruit. We also shared the delight of the families as they moved their belongings and themselves into their new homes.
Our involvement and contribution was more of the fetching and carrying, digging and lifting kind, but with the patient guidance of the local craftsmen we did do some block laying, rendering and whitewashing. Actually there was nothing that we did on the building sites that could not have been done by the people of Kallupatti. We could have just sent a cheque and the work would still have been done. So what else was there? What was the point of us going? Did anyone benefit in any way from our stay there?
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| Well, from our point of view, if we had just sent a cheque, we would not have witnessed first hand the work of RTU. We would not have seen the hundreds of houses which had been built in the surrounding area for the poor; or the 4 Children’s Villages (one of which we were actually staying in) receiving orphaned children every week as a result of the parents having died because of AIDS/HIV, or abandoned or handed over because the families did not want them or could not cope; we would not have seen St Peter’s school; or the Teenage Girls Hostel; or the Sewing classroom; or the Day School for those who had “dropped out” of the government school system because they required a more individual teaching regime; or the Community Clinic; or the local industry in the RTU Centre making woven and dyed garments for export. |
| We would not have had the wonderful time of playing with the children at playtime, being exhausted by their perpetual energy as we played football, threw frisbees and balls, and ran around in the many varieties of tag games; sitting with them at study time desperately trying to spell our names and learn phrases from the 247 letters of the Tamil alphabet, while being humbled by their ability to read English; praying with them at prayer-time and being moved by the way in which all the families came together each evening for some spiritual learning; eating with the families in their small houses having been dragged in by the 6 children of each house and told to sit down and eat (there was no escape from this!) |
| We would not have built up a great rapport with the builders on the worksite and with the families whose new homes we were helping to build. (Incidentally, even the owners helped with the work on their own houses!) The fact that we could not engage in “deep and meaningful” conversation due to the language barrier did not prevent us from communicating excitement, laughter, and happiness, from taking photographs and handing them round, and from passing the time of day just working next to each other, passing bricks and cement when needed and uttering the occasional words “hollow block”! |
| We would not have had the chance of “going for a drink” in the final week with some of the stonemasons, who clearly wanted to celebrate our time together. Nor would we have been so delightfully entertained by the children at their dance programmes and seen them in their classrooms.
From the point of view of the villagers of Kallupatti, we can only say what effect our presence had on them because of what our RTU hosts told us. There must have been some incredulity at seeing 11 white people walking along the road each day to and from the building area. They knew we were staying with RTU. Even the local bus drivers knew where we were heading for when we went into town! It became known what we were up to. Word on the street was that they were more than happy with what we were doing and in fact quite overwhelmed.
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| There are, however, 2 particular instances or observations which have made a deep impact on our hearts and minds and which will continue to come up in conversation between us. |
| Firstly, there was visit to a village called Sarrutupatti some 20 kilometres from Kallupatti. We did not go all in one group because to do so would have been embarrassing for us as we would have looked like tourists or voyeurs, and it would have been embarrassing for those whom we met. We went to a school which was in an appalling condition. One long classroom with 3 classes being taught simultaneously, no partition walls and the floor breaking up so much that some of the children appeared to be sitting in a sand pit, and the walls crumbling. No toilets, no office for the headteacher, and no kitchen. Nearby was a community of families who were classed as being at the bottom of the lowest caste (even though castes officially don’t exist, they do in reality). Their children were deprived of schooling because they did not have decent clothes to wear. Their houses (huts like those we pulled down to replace) were in a terrible condition. And most of the adults unemployed. Shining through this tragedy, however, was the day when some of our group joined with the people to “bless the ground” where it had been decided by RTU to build a new school building which would take in some of the hitherto “unreached children”. This gave hope to the villagers, as did the word that very soon work would start on constructing some decent housing for them as part of the Rural Housing programme. |
| Secondly, there were the people who were working for RTU. There is no doubt that Brother James has been the inspiration and driving force behind all that has been achieved so far. But there is the Director Gomothay, the Assistant Director Mr Kamaraj, Mr Manoba the Housing progamme manager, the Nutrition Advisor, the Clinic staff, the teachers, the workers in the weaving rooms and in the building yard, the managers of each of the 4 Childrens Villages… and so on and so on. These people are such an inspiration that one cannot help but be moved and humbled by seeing what they do . But no greater admiration can one have for anyone other than for the children who have been adopted into the Children’s Villages and for the mothers who foster them. The children who were abandoned or orphaned, who once lived in suffering and in some cases near to death, are now the energetic, healthy, smiling, noisy, and cheeky, nuisances (in other words great boys and girls) with whom it is impossible to live for 5 weeks and leave without tears. The mothers who have each chosen to look after 6 children are above ordinary admiration. They feed the children, see to it that they are clothed, nurse them, make sure they go to school or kindergarten. They organise themselves and sort out their problems and plan what they need or what they think is best for the children. They derive their strength from each other and receive the support of the RTU organisation. |
| In conclusion, (and the conclusion is only dictated by the amount of space on the Newsletter!) our staying in Kallupatti was a privilege. Everything about our stay was memorable for the 11 of us. Even the tummy problems will not be forgotten! Above all it was a remarkable time to witness the teachings of Jesus Christ in action. These include the words, “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me” and “He that welcomes one such little child in my name welcomes me”. More than that it is a witness to the Gospel in action, the washing of the feet, and an enactment by everyone involved with RTU of Christ’s commandment “Love your neighbour as yourself” (even though God may be glorified in different ways!) |
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We thank Brother James and all at RTU for making our stay in Kallupatti so enjoyable, and for their hospitality and care, and for the opportunity of allowing us to encounter a unique and enlightening experience. We hope that the children have now calmed down and we wish all those whom we met wherever that may have been a happy and blessed future.
Nick Green (Leader of the Group)”
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If you are able to make a donation, cheques etc should be made out to Reaching the Unreached and sent to the following:
Max Philbrick, 11 Crofts Avenue, Corbridge, Northumberland NE45 5LY
Phone: 01434 632707
Email: max.philbrick@rtu.org.uk
If you would like to receive this newsletter in a large print version, please let us know and we will supply it.
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Reaching the Unreached Village India
OUR VISION
“To care for the felt basic needs and priorities of the poorest, especially the women and children and empower them towards their overall development and self-reliance.”
Brother James
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| Cordially yours, |
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| Brother James
Kimpton |
