Judges scholarship trip to India

Transcription

1 Judges scholarship trip to India Michelle Goodall, Internal Communications Business Partner was part of a group of people from across the business that visited one of our communities in India. Here, she shares her experience. As part of our Free the Children (FTC) UK Schools programme, we offer 30 students the opportunity to compete for a place on our annual scholarship trip to one of our communities in India. These trips are run by Me to We, Free the Children s charity partner. The 30 successful applicants, aged between 12-18, volunteer to build schools and help with lots of initiatives while connecting with the people they re supporting. The 18-day experience is a once in a lifetime opportunity for young people to volunteer and learn valuable leadership skills. The Judges This year s finalists were chosen by nine representatives from across our Committees and Unions. They formed a panel of judges for the tough task of whittling down 60 applications to the final 29 (one winner was selected at We Day back in March). Each application described the great work that these young people do including raising awareness of many issues in their own communities in the UK, the efforts they go to in order to support charities close to their hearts and even some of the struggles they have overcome in their day to day life. After a long and emotional day of deliberating, the judges agreed on the lucky winners to receive a scholarship and four months later, these young people were on their Virgin Atlantic flight, bound for India.

2 Our judging panel was made up of: Jason Lawless - Cabin Crew, Jay Nijjar - Cargo, Nick Johnson - Cabin Safety and Security, Pamela Morgan - Contact Centre, David Mabbett - Captain, Pete Legg - Captain, Samm Rizwan Airports, Wayne Bullen Engineering and Viktoria Tegard Internal Communications. Nick said When I was selected to be part of this year s judging panel I was truly excited. I was totally amazed to read and listen to the outstanding achievements/challenges that some of the students had encountered already in their lives. I really had no idea that the process was going to be so emotional, yet truly inspiring. Our arrival at Araveli The judges and I were lucky enough to travel to India and visit the scholarship group during their 18-day trip. After arriving in to Mumbai and connecting onto a flight to Udaipur, we were taken by car to Araveli, our tented camp in Rajasthan. The drive through rural India was beautiful, with breath-taking scenery surrounding us. There were goats and cows roaming the roads and our cars were dodging them like an obstacle course. Shortly after our arrival, we met the scholarship students. They greeted us by tieing a Rakhi (a beautifully crafted and decorated thread) on our right wrist to celebrate the Indian festival, Raksha Bandhan, which brings family and friends closer together. After chatting and getting to know the students, we then tried our hand at some traditional Bollywood dancing before making our very own samosa s, led by Chef KK.

3 Chef KK is the head chef at Araveli and clearly takes pride in his work. He cooked us amazing food throughout our stay and gave us a tour of his kitchen which is something that he created and is very proud of. Udawad The following morning, after a 7am yoga session with the students, we were on our way to a school in Udawad that was funded by Virgin Atlantic staff donations. This school is where the scholarship students were volunteering to build a wall around the outside of the school, to keep the children safe. We were greeted by drums and the local children lined up in a row shouting Namaste in excitement to see us. When we approached them, the children were eager to give each of us a flower necklace and take our hands to lead us to their classroom.

4 In the classroom, we were welcomed by the class singing a traditional Indian song followed by some kind words from the headteacher, who explained how much of a difference our people s fundraising for FTC has made to their school. We could see there had been large, bright classrooms built which was in stark contrast to their old classrooms. We were also told how FTC is working with the school to build a block of latrines (toilets) for students to use at the school. Not only will these facilities ensure better overall health for the students, but they will also provide the necessary privacy for female students, who previously didn t have any facilities to use. The scholarship group were already hard at work, transporting sand across a production line from the bottom of a hill, right to the top. This sand was then used to mix cement, which was used to build the safety wall. Our group quickly joined the production line and got stuck in! Kamoda, Udawad We then transferred to Kamoda, another community that Virgin Atlantic supports, and met Moni Bai. Moni is an important figure in her community and is known as a Sparnoch, which is a person elected as head of villages. The Sparnoch is the focal point of contact between the government and the local community and Moni s local constituency consists of 5,000 people.

5 We were welcomed to Moni s house and learnt more about her life and her daily challenges. We tried our hand at making chipatties before cooking them on a new smokeless stove. The new stoves vent the cooking smoke out of the house, reducing smoke inhalation and respiratory illness. They also use wood more efficiently and has a second burner, allowing the villagers to heat two pans at the same time. Smokeless stoves are a Change for Children initiative and we have funded over 800 smokeless stoves. FTC is currently working to encourage the villagers on the importance of boiling their water while their food cooks to give them clean, sanitized drinking water by the morning. Moni then described her multiple trips down to the well to get water for her family and her animals, carrying it back on her head. She gave us the opportunity to try this for ourselves, which was not an easy task. The pot was heavy on our heads and it was difficult to get the hang of balancing it while walking up an uneven and rocky path. The watershed project Following another 7am yoga session at Araveli, we then went to visit a family in their home to learn more about our watershed project in Udawad.

6 One thing that was plain to see was that access to water for consumption and agricultural purposes is extremely limited. As malnutrition is a widespread problem in Rajasthan, the watershed development project works to put measures in to place to support local farmers in innovative farming techniques and water management projects to help ensure our communities have access to sustainable food sources. The farmers we visited have worked hard on a range of new watershed treatments to capture, store and recycle rainwater for crops and their household consumption. This involves the construction of stone walls which act as barriers that keep the moisture in the soil and reduce erosion, and trenches to collect water from heavy storms to help with soil and moisture retention. The farmers told us how FTC had supported them in securing new farming tools which increase soil fertility and improve their crop yield. They showed us their land and explained how they had just planted new soya seeds alongside their maize crops, which they were very excited about. I was proud to find out that the watershed project was also funded by Virgin Atlantic staff fundraising. This trip for me has to be one of the most eye-opening, inspiring and humbling experiences that I ve had. From meeting the 30 students from the UK who are clearly all so passionate about volunteering their time to raise awareness and funds for issues they feel strongly about to learning and understanding more about how we as a business and FTC are supporting our communities in some amazing initiatives to improve nutrition, health and livelihood. Thank you to the judges and Free the Children teams for a great experience! A huge thanks must also go to our people at Virgin Atlantic and our customers for donating funds to make funding these project possible.

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