Dear Friends,
A big Hello from all of us at Reaching Hand!
It has been a busy few months for all the children and staff at Reaching Hand!
On 26th January the children and staff of Reaching Hand celebrated Republic Day with HCL team. It is one of India’s most important national events. It was on January 26th, 1950 that the constitution of India came into force and India became a truly Sovereign, Democratic and Republic state. The HCL team provided sweet treats for the children and hosted many different games and activities such as dancing and singing along the HCL staff. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the day remembering our great nation’s democratic values!
GOALS TO GOODNESS – A CHARITY SOCCER TOURNAMENT AMONGST CORPORATE IN BANGALORE
In February we organized our first inter corporate soccer tournament - Goals To Goodness (G2G) fundraising event! This included 16 corporate teams who all participated in the matches, a fantastic friendly event! The children were keen to get involved as they also got an opportunity to play a friendly match with Oasis children. The event was organized to raise awareness and funds for our orphan children. The event was a huge success and got very good recognition in the media. We are planning to have more in the near future!
February also saw a very busy time for all the children’s studies, as they all knuckled down to prepare for their annual examinations. Their exams then took place in March, and we are hoping that they will be rewarded for all their hours of study time by achieving good grades! Will are anticipating their results which will be due by the 1st June.
At the end of March, we were pleased to welcome Emily Parkes,our first International Volunteer! Emily is a BSc Geography graduate from the U.K, and she will be working with us on voluntary placement for 6 months. Emily will be in the office helping the Director of Operations with fund-raising for the charity, as well as working closely with the children, helping with their reading and giving support to our older children who are entering their teenage years. She is staying in the girls New Home throughout the duration of her stay.
Reaching Hand Run towards a Positive Future in the TCS Bangalore W10K Marathon!
On Sunday 19th May, more than 100 supporters of Reaching Hand took part in the TCS Bangalore 10K Marathon 2013, including our children, staff, volunteers, our Care Champions – Derek Dsousa, Patrick Pitchappa, Kumar Raju, Emily Parkes & V M Samuel, and Corporate Partner, Infinite. United with various other causes and NGO’s, we ran for the better future of our children! In the Majja run, the atmosphere was alive with samba music, dancing and creative fancy dress! Reaching Hand came bearing t-shirts, banners, gloves and some crazy headdress! Mr. Lemuel Paul, Employee Club President of Infinite Computer Solutions (Corporate Partner of Reaching Hand for the Marathon) said – “The marathon was a great way to de-stress, and lot of fun too. However the cause [Reaching Hand] that we ran for made our participation more satisfying than anything else.” Mr Sunder Rajan, Senior Vice President (Human Resources) of Infinite found that “It’s a thrill to run with everyone for a common human cause. I really felt I have accumulated more energy after Running together with all”. Indeed the aim of this event is to bring people together with their passions and aspirations, the common purpose being fitness, and representing a cause they believe in.
We wish to thank all those who participated with us, as well as everyone who sponsored Reaching Hand. The Bangalore Marathon is an interactive and engaging way in which our charity can raise funds, reach out to the public and promote our cause.
BIAL AIRPORT VISIT 21st May 2013 - “Aiming to Fly High”
On Tuesday the 21st May, our children had a fantastic day out to Bangalore International Airport. Upon reaching its fifth birthday, the children were invited to celebrate with them. A grand tour of the airport was given to our children and staff, demonstrating the procedure of check-in, luggage and security, giving us a deeper insight into its organisation and day to day running’s. The children were able to have a bus tour of the airfield, and it was clear to see the children’s delight getting up close to the aircrafts! We were then provided with a delicious lunch and had a craft exercise, where the children made origami butterflies and planes. This kind of exposure for our children will encourage them to aim high, and pursue a challenging career, maybe working for the airport themselves one day. The chance to come so close to the gateway of far-reaching places will also inspire travel and an interest in the rest of the world! Much thanks to BIAL for organising such an intriguing program behind the scenes of the airport, and the lunch and activities were enjoyed greatly by our children!
WOMENS EMPOWERMENT SAFETY PROGRAM 22nd May 2013
“Sharing knowledge to inspire lives”
A team of employees from Goldman Sachs joined us in Kagglipur to meet our ladies who are part of Reaching Hands program to teach tailoring skills to vulnerable, and poverty stricken women in the local community. On Wednesday 22nd May, 17 employees came to educate and demonstrate the many issues women face in this society, including lack of education and abuse. The women were advised on their human rights, and guided on how to deal with various situations that may put them at risk. With two groups of people from very different social backgrounds, the women soon integrated with everyone, and built up their own confidence engaging with one another. Also the language barrier was broken by various exercises encouraging those to introduce themselves and share their stories, and trust and hugging exercises. It soon became evident that everyone really began to relate to each other, and much fun and laughter was had by all. Thank you to Goldman Sachs for sharing these important issues to our ladies, and offering them guidance on how they can manage their lives, these lessons can prove to be invaluable.
“Real Madrid Coach brings Inspiration to our vulnerable Children”
On Tuesday 14th May a selection of 14 boys from the Bangalore based charity, Reaching Hand had the chance to meet and have a training session with Guillermo Escudero Tello, Head Coach of Real Madrid’s youth football team. This took place at HAL’s playing fields. Accompanying the children from Reaching Hand were Mr Thomas Saju, Mr Akshay Sagar, Mr Santosh P. V and Ms Emily Parkes. From Lokko Sports Mr Noel Wilson, Mr R. Gopal, and Mr Santosh Kiran. The Real Madrid Foundation are working with Lokko Sports to develop football in India, and Guillermo has been undertaking football sessions for young players and coaches in Mumbai, and Bangalore. The boys of Reaching Hand had a practical session with Guillermo practicing various games and new techniques, followed by a friendly match. This engagement with professional footballers will certainly impact the boys, and inspire higher aspirations for their futures, maybe even to work hard to take football up as a career themselves. Reaching Hand is partnered with Lokko Sports, and will receive further training and support from them to inspire our children and improve their skills.
So we have been working hard to organise activities and events for the children during their summer holidays, whilst also trying to reach further by continuing to raise funds for our new development – New Home and Dream School Project. We can happily report that we have recently obtained the land for the site, but still there is a lot of money to find and a great deal of work to be done to plan this exciting development. Folowing are the some of the links of the happenings.. ......
BONUS DAY ANNOUNCEMENT - 12th June 2013
Kindly visit the link and donate to our project as your money will get matched to the maximum. Please visit the below link for more information. http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/education-and-hope-for-50-orphans-children-in-india/
1. https://picasaweb.google.com/108383794776764127244/FOOTBALL?authkey=Gv1sRgCJCgp5b3k6bOOA&feat=email
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN9HlNt5L7Q
THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR CONTINUOUS SUPPORT AND FAITH IN OUR WORK.
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Dear Friend,
As we enter into an another exciting New Year, we want to say our heartfelt thanks to each one of YOU for helping us give more children good health, happiness and hope in 2012.
The funds contributed by you is making lot of difference in our children lives and strengthening us in delivering the best services to them.
Despite the dark clouds that so often occupy in the social media spotlight, we maintain an enduring sense of hope…….thanks to the generosity of our supporters & volunteers. Thank you for all that you do; your impact on children's lives is truly immeasurable.
The New Year starts with hope, excitement and new energy at Reaching Hand! The Team enters the year feeling tremendously grateful to each of you who have been an important part of our success in the last year. As we gear up to reflect on the year gone by, we can only feel a tremendous sense of happiness and gratitude for the thousands who have walked the distance with us in the last year and we are hopeful of this continued support in 2013-2014 too.
Under Reaching Hand, we have programs specifically designed to meet defined needs of vulnerable and marginalized women. Our programs are aligned to our core vision of transforming “Today’s destitute into tomorrow’s leaders”. We are committed to this vision and we work towards effective implementation of all our programs.
The programmatic activities of Reaching Hand aim at bringing about physical, mental and social development of children – boys and girls – in a holistic manner through the participation of children, parents, families and community at large. Through our wide range of programs, we help children and families living in extreme poverty to meet their basic needs and find a restored sense of hope, self-worth, and human dignity.
Through our most innovative regular programs we have been impacting many lives of children, women and community as a whole. Apart from the New Home project….we also has some of the most impactful programs, which are listed below for your information.
DREAM CAMPUS PROJECT:-
The current premises in which the children are housed consist of two rented houses with limited space. As the children are growing, their activities are curbed because of lack of sufficient space and due to which their emotional, physical and legal growth is affected that give a child a sense of security, continuity, commitment and identity.
The pilot project revealed favorable outcomes and now Reaching Hand is ready to move forward with our carefully-determined, long-term plan: A Dream Home Residential Facility and a state of art International School. We are ready to move forward from 50 to 500 children with what we would like to term as the “New Home and Dream International School Project”.
OUR GREATEST ADVENTURE- Daring to dream BIG
As an expansion to what has already been established, we have identified a village community on the outskirts of Bangalore city and decided to establish an educational campus (about 4.25 acres) where we plan to construct infrastructure to house up to 500 destitute children in our group foster care and also provide free education and healthcare for all the community children. We are confident that this project will leave an indelible mark on the socio-economic status of this village community. The cost of the land is about Rs. 3 crores. The infrastructure cost including foster care homes, school buildings, and basic healthcare facility is about 9 crores. Our children have now dared to dream. And hence, we are calling this project DREAM CAMPUS. We hope that you will make it your dream too. All contributions are 100% tax exempt as per clause mentioned below.
OUR INVITATION TO THE ADVENTURE
If you believe that this is truly a worthwhile adventure, we invite you to embark with us on this journey of enjoying the fulfillment of seeing lives transformed and communities developed. Let us change the face of our nation, one person at a time by making “Today’s destitute into tomorrow’s leader”
To fulfill this vision, we are looking at people like you, organizations and companies to join hands with us to bring this vision to fruition. The satisfaction of seeing smiles on the face of our children and experiencing the lives being transformed can change your perception forever and inspire others to follow their dreams. If the proposal excites you then please do contact us for partnership support by visiting the link @ http://reachinghand.org/brochure.pdf
HOW YOU CAN JOIN THE ADVENTURE
As we celebrate all we accomplished in 2012, let's also remember that one little hand by one little hand and one little heart by one little heart we have the power to make life better for these children’s tomorrow than it was yesterday. So let's strive to make 2013 a great year by being generous NOW!
THANK YOU AND HAVE A WONDERFUL YEAR AHEAD WITH MORE SUCCESS AND PEACE.
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Dear Friend,
Seasonal greetings from Reaching Hand, Bangalore!
We would like to communicate our heartfelt thanks to all our donors for their continuing support and faith in our work. We would like to thank you for choosing to make a difference in the lives of our children. We are grateful for your support and want to share the joy and excitement of our children as they continue to grow. Our children continue to amaze us with their creativity, resilience, and enthusiasm to achieve positive results through their hard work. As always, we could not do what we do without your support.
The last quarter was very exciting and eventful time for our children as they had to go to the school after having an awesome summer holidays ever. There was a mixed feeling among all the children. Some were excited because they will be meeting their friends…. some were overjoyed as they like going school and some were reluctant because they have to do the homework and listen to the teachers again.
Though they started with mixed responses; they continue to surprise us with their skill and talents. It is barely a month since school began and we are very happy to note that TEN of our children from St. Michael`s School have been chosen as Prefects and Monitors and among those Thomba & Thotsem have been chosen as Captains and Chuimayo as the Prefect for IX Standard.
What better we could expect from our children as they have been chosen as leaders in their respective classes which is our ultimate vision. They could achieve it because of their steep determination and hard work and we are sure they would continue to do so in the future too.
Through this report we would like to share the individual achievements of few of our children so that you can understand how focused our staffs are in our approach of making today’s destitute into tomorrow leaders.
Recently two of our boys Raju and Ranjit from St. Paul School won two trophies each in 200 and 100 mtrs running race. We are really proud of them and forced to look back when Raju was diagnosed as having a hole in his heart 6 years ago. He used to get breathless every time he exerted himself. Today by God`s grace he is completely healed and bringing glory to our home. To the other hand, Ranjit was an abandoned street kid who used to pick up garbage for his living and now there is a complete transformation. Whenever this kind of kids do something great we feel proud and become extremely thrilled in their small achievements.
Chuimayo represented his School St. Michael at the 5th state Level Olympics held in July and won a Bronze for 4x100m relay. In cricket, volleyball and basket ball he won the silver medal (the runners up team) at School’s annual day event. His football team also represented the School at the Inter School Meet at Christ Academy.
Umesh – a born athlete won gold for football, gold for Long Jump, gold for 50 mtrs running race and silver for cricket. Also has been selected to represent his School for Athletics event at the State Level to be held in Coorg on Sept 20th.
Arun won a Gold medal as his team emerged winners in a cricket match in the school. He also won a silver medal for the runners up Football Team.
Thotsem won a silver medal in Football, gold in Cricket, Gold in Long Jump and Third Prize in Essay Writing.
Surya won two gold medals for 200m athletics and football respectively.
Sanju- a sensational singer won the first prize again in solo singing event and third prize on recitation.
Elisha – a dream cricketer won a gold medal in cricket and silver in football.
Tomba - 50mtrs running race -Silver, Long Jump-Silver and in Essay Writing - First Prize.
Stephen and Varun represented their School at St.Joseph Inter School Football Tournament and won the Excellent Achievement award.
Ritu...Participated in Throw ball, volleyball and her Team won the Winners Shield. She also got the excellent citizenship award and the English speech award.
Ruth....Won the Prize for News Reading Competition
Jyothi...Got a certificate academics and the excellent citizenship award.
Pooja...won a certificate for recitation.
Blessy P ....won the second prize e in Running Race.
Chaitra....got 3rd place in singing competition.
Sneha...won the 2nd place in Elocution
Monisha....1st prize in Shotput and 2nd place in 100m running race.
The London Olympic was on the air and that inspired us was the answer when we asked them about their success in the school annual sport event.
On 14th August, all the children attended a Painting Competition organized by United Way of Mumbai. They were most excited because for them it was a BIG OUTING and an opportuniteis to get lots of snacks and goodies. The organizer had three prizes to announce but seeing the paintings of our children, they were compelled to give away fourth prizes too. Amongst all the kids Surya, Prem, Blessy and Leshini were the winners.
We are continually awed not only by the achievements of our children but also by the breadth of service we get from the wardens and teachers.
None of these exciting new developments would have been possible without the support from dedicated members of the community such as YOU.
We are incredibly grateful for and humbled by your generosity and your belief in our work. Thank you for everything that you do!
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