Madurai JHC project

That’s my new home for another month. It’s countryside (45 min from Madurai, Tamilnadu) with Boys Town and a project school 5 min away from me.

I arrived in Thiramangalam for my voluntary project at Joe Homan Charity JHC.

http://www.joehoman.org.uk/

The charity was established some time after Joe Homan started Boys Town in 1964! Imagine the poverty he was facing back then with those youngsters and their families.

The aim of the JHC/Boys Town Society (association necessary for the administrative reasons) is to offer to children from disadvantaged background an opportunity to go through the cycle of education until the end – getting a profession, that would assure a decent job and steady incomes. Many of the children from poor families need to work at early age. They might go up to 3^rd or 4^th standard (grade) but then providing for the family would become a priority. Especially when one of the parents passed away, left the family, is imprisoned or physically/mentally incapable of supporting the family. 

 

 So a children from such family, with the agreement of a care taker (sometimes it would be a grandmother ‘cause the parents are no longer there), would be placed in one of the Childrens Village (little ones) or in the Boys / Girls Town (if above 9 years old). These are communities where children live, have their daily responsibilities (sweeping around, gardening, washing their clothes, etc), doing their homework and having other after school activities (sport, stamp club). They have meals 3 times a day, simple but nutritious which they would not get back home. Children go to local schools, spend here the months when the school is on and go home for any holidays.

JHC/BTS carries on many more projects alongside. One of them is Francois Mayer Nursery and Primary School (an outcome of a Belgian family’s donation in honour of their dead son). 

So what am I to do here?

I arrived to the office and was greeted by administrators, introduced to everybody (10 members of the staff) and presented with quite full schedule for the next 4 weeks (from 9am till 7pm… :-). Nothing special, you would say. Well, to my knowledge about some experiences of voluntary work in the underdeveloped countries, that welcoming was mega organised!

Usually volunteers feel lost, not knowing who to refer to, sometimes bored as the work is not very challenging or given enough importance and… frustrated ‘cause the effort they put is not reflected in actions of the staff and organisation. Indians are very proud to have a white person on board (and in the picture) but not necessarily would they put in practice given advice/experience. I think cultural differences have an enormous impact on this volunteer-organisation relationship.

Here the expectations were high and vast but quite accurate with my professional background. I didn’t feel like I have to fulfil it but rather tell them what is possible for me and in restricted time that I’m here.

So I was to look into:

-       the functioning of the school as it is at an experiment stage,

-       learning difficulties,

-       behavioural and emotional difficulties in children’s village and boys/girls town,

-       psychological difficulties of some of the children.

So I get to work :-)