Help 16 girls to go on an annual educational tour

Dear Supporter of the Educational Tour,

Greetings to you from the Hope House.  I am delighted to write this update on what we are doing with the funds we received to take the girls on an educational tour.

Compared to the initial plan, we are taking 14 girls instead of 16 (as one girl got admission to study Bachelor of Nursing and left the Hope House and the other wanted to leave the Hope House to pursue bachelors course in arts) to a city called Hyderabad starting from 14th of January and we return home on the 18th of January.  

I have enclosed the air tickets that we bought for the girls and five staff members (2 male and 3 females).  Going by a plane for these disadvantaged girls would perhaps be once in a life time opportunity and the novelty that we wanted to incorporate into this trip to make them special. 

We plan to update about this trip in real time on whatsapp status (at 9629471920) and social media sites (facebook at www.facebook.com/indiahopehouse and on twitter at www.twitter.com/indiahopehouse) so please do join us to follow our trip to see how your money is been used.  I also intend to write a daily report during the trip and a final report after we return from the tour. 

I cannot thank you enough because I can only imagine the impact that this trip would make on these young laides.  I have seen the young ladies who have graduated from the hope house how they are doing now because of the confidence they had gained by travelling and embracing diversity.

Thanks again and waiting to see you on the social media sites.

Regards

Ruby      

• MS_Jennifer_U_5.pdf (PDF)
  
• MR_RUBY_NAKKA_AND_6_OTHERS_TKT_2.pdf (PDF)
  
• MR_SURESH_AND_2_OTHER_TKT_2.pdf (PDF)
  

Why and how we take the underprivileged girls on an education tour?

At the Hope House, annual educational tour is an event awaited by the girls with lot of excitement and anticipation.  Months of participation of girls goes into planning this trip.  Whole objective of these trips is to build their confidence and resilience.  But how we go about doing that is what this report is all about.

As soon as we determine the budget we have, we announce the possible locations for the girls to choose.  The older girls browse through the net of these locations and discuss with the younger girls and they make a choice of their location.

Once the location is determined, we look for novelty to incorporate to help the girls to experience newer kinds of experiences.  For example, we have taken the girls to seashores and cold hill stations apart from places of historical importance (for example Mahatma Gandhi’s tomb in New Delhi) which they may have studied in school.  We try to travel by the nights so that the night stay expenditure for a day or two is saved apart from helping the girls to experience sleeping on the moving trains.  We try and take them out of state to help them to see the differences of culture so that they become tolerant of diversity.  So far, we have taken the girls to Hyderabd, New Delhi, Bangalore, Mysore, Ooty, and Trivandrum etc.

On these trips, there is nothing more important for us than the girls safety.  We ensure that adequate number of staff accompany the girls, safe place to stay, hygienic food to eat and preparing the girls on the contingency plans in case of getting lost or accidents etc.  Every child and the staff is given a name tag with the administrative officers phone numbers stated behind them to call in case of an emergency of any kind.

When they come back, they go and share their experiences with their classmates and teachers.  There were times when teachers expressed surprise to the effect to imply that they have never been to such places but Hope House girls did.  That boosts their confidence to know that they are special and unique.  That confidence enables them to start thinking independently.

• First_report_on_education_tour.pdf (PDF)