Calcutta 2009
After raising a staggering €51,000 for the street children of Calcutta and the Cork based charity HOPE that works with them, lucky students travelled to the city to see how the money was being spent. This life changing journey was led by Mr. Preston who has for many years co-ordinated the massive effort at the college to raise funds for this project. This is the 4th year they have travelled to the slums of the great Indian city to observe and lend support to the program we support. This was the second time that Mr. Preston has traelled but was joined this year by his colleague Ms. MacKillop. His abiding memory is of the overcrowded conditions and the huge numbers of families living on the streets. Ultadanga slum is the size of a soccer pitch and home to 5,000 families.
In Calcutta a city the size of Dublin but with a population of 15 million nearly 40% don’t have a proper home. The college has raised more than €150.000 in the last 4 years. Our thanks go to all the staff and students including the current transition year class who worked so hard to raise the money but did not get the chance to travel. We are very proud of their efforts.
Kolkata- “The City Of Joy”
As part of our Transition Year last year we were given the opportunity to fundraise for the HOPE Foundation. We were also told that four pupils would get the chance to travel to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) with HOPE to see first hand the work being done by HOPE and their Indian partners to help the street children. Mr. Preston co-ordinated the fundraising and we began straight away. Part of the fundraising consisted of bag packing in Marks and Spencers.
The selection process consisted of two parts – a short essay and an interview. Sixteen pupils put their names forward at the start but the lucky four chosen were Daragh Mathews, Annie Moloney, Kieran James and Clare Stead.
On Thursday 15th February our journey began. We had to be up bright and early to get to Cork airport for 5am. We travelled to Kolkata via London and Dubai. We arrived in “The City Of Joy” at 7.30 on Friday morning. As soon as we stepped off the plane we were hit by the humidity, heat, smells and sights of this incredible city. As we walked out to our buses some local children welcomed us. This was our first encounter with the children of Kolkata and it was an emotional one. We travelled by bus to Vedic Village, the hotel we would be staying in for week. The sights we saw along the way shocked us; people sleeping under billboards, people pointing and waving to us.
We didn’t have long to rest before we left Vedic Village to see our first project- the HOPE Boys Home. As we stepped through the door we were greeted by a chorus of “Hello Aunty! Hello Uncle!” and were each given a red rose by one of the young boys. We had some time to play with them before they performed their gymnastics routines for us. Our hearts were won over by one young boy who wore a Cork jersey with pride!
The following day we visited two projects. These were the Drug Rehabilitation Centre where the boys do carpentry, go to school and go to work, and the Home For Children Affected By HIV where the children were doing their schoolwork when we arrived.
On the Sunday we visited the HOPE Girls Home, which was set up in 1999. Here we saw the incredibly talented girls who sang and danced for us. They even put on a little play about the effects of cutting down trees. The girls in another of the HOPE Girls Homes taught us how to dance to one of their songs which was funny to say the least. Also in the Girls Home is a crèche, which we visited. Here the younger children are cared for. They really enjoyed showing us their skills at going down the slide head first at great speed, which they found very amusing!
We visited a number of the drop-in centres in a town called Shalimar. These drop-in centres are like day care facilities and offer the children an education- the one thing that cannot be taken from them.
We were only able to visit one slum during our trip because of the large size of our group (over 40 pupils). We visited the Oltadanga Slum. This is where we realised the full extent of poverty in Kolkata. There are hundreds of families packed into such a small space. It was heart breaking to see the appalling conditions that these people are forced to live in. They wash and drink from the same water source that has sewage running through it. This was the most pivotal and upsetting moment of the trip.
The week we spent in Kolkata was a life changing experience and one I will never forget. We made lots of friends in The City Of Joy and we were upset to leave them behind, but still happy to return to our lives in Cork. After such an eye-opening week, we realise just how much our fundraising is appreciated and needed. We raised a total of over 25,000 euro last year. Thank you to everyone who helped in any way with our fundraising, especially Mr Preston who worked so hard coordinating everything.
This photograph was taken in the HOPE Boys Home by one of the young boys.
-Clare Stead
Form V
Hope Foundation
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