Successful

first month in St. Louis Lower Primary School

-Mudamveli, Kerala
To provide educational opportunities to children, especially primary school aged
children, and to support the development and utilization of critical educational
infrastructure (MDG 2)

This last month we have successfully introduced a high number of volunteers to a new
education partner, serving children from non-affluent but stable backgrounds, in a local
catholic run school. This allows us to further increase the number of direct beneficiaries
from our volunteer skill pool both children and teachers impacted by our education
program.

The end of July brought together the plans for further developing the
Education program here in Kerala. After several months of planning and prep work,
volunteers had a chance to begin working in this amazing school.
St. Louis school is run in conjunction with St. Louis Church, and is currently
serving approximately one hundred children. The Education program here in Kerala
seeks to find ways to continuously improve the standard of the English learning
delivered, as well as providing extra-circulatory activities for the children.
Nestled in the heart of Mudamveli, this picturesque school buzzes with the
voices of children from standards one to four. The children here are almost
exclusively from the surrounding village, and are not as accustomed to western
people as some of the other children that we have worked with. The children are
eager and ready to learn. The children have been working in groups of an average of
five children per group. This is a refreshing contrast for our volunteers from the
exclusively one on one teaching environment of Thamaraparambu. With
encouragement, and training from the other educators here at the base, the
volunteers are putting forth an excellent level of teaching. Working alongside the
head-mistress Sister Jancee and the local teachers, we have been able to begin
assessing the childrens level of English. We have also had a chance to introduce the
children to a music class with the support of our Arts volunteer. The children enjoyed
a short break from their traditional lessons to take some time to learn rhythm and a
few simple English tunes.
We were pleased to have a leadership intern for the month as well. In
conjunction with her time spent teaching at the schools, she was able to introduce a
Womans Empowerment workshop to many of the older girls at St. Louis. Sister
Jancee was happy to let us work with the girls , and encourage them to consider any
job option that they fancied. The girls were able to talk through what would make
them good at the things they wanted to do later in life, and the day turned out to be
a success.
The month of July also brought a buzz of activity at the base with the arrival of
eleven volunteers to hitting sixteen volunteers, the highest number we have ever

had at this location. To accommodate the large number of volunteers, the Education
project had a chance to run at both project sites simultaneously. With the Arts
coordinator running the project at Thamaraparambu school, the Education
coordinator took the other half to volunteers to St. Louis. Despite much sickness on
base and chickenpox at Thamaraparambu school, the desired merging of the two
schools into one project week has been a great success. With the volunteer number
at a more normal level, the sickness under control, and the dual school week off to a
great start, we are looking forward to a great next month!