Chennai: Avadi

Some of our Overseas partners
From Chennai 2008 Photo Album
Click on a photo to see a larger version.)

Maya Angelou, a well-known poet, has written that, "Hope is born again in the faces of our children." We saw this hope and joy shine in the faces of 524 children today, as well as in the faces of their mothers, when we distributed the SCAW bedkits in a school yard in the town of Avadi outside of Chennai.

Chennai is a teeming city of almost 7 million people in the southeast of India. The weather is hot and muggy, the roads are dusty and congested with buses, scooters, cars, trucks, bicycles, and cattle, which sometimes lie or walk down the sides or even in the middle of the road. We rely on the Chennai Rotarians to get us safely to the Distribution site through the heavy traffic.

The Rotarians are a dedicated and extremely well organized service group who have prepared six thousand SCAW bedkits to be distributed by the SCAW travelling volunteer team during the next two weeks.

The 2008 Chennai bedkit From Chennai 2008 Photo Album

The bedkit contains 21 items:

• a cotton rug,
• foam mattress,
• pillow,
• pillowcase,
• two bed sheets,
• a blanket,
• a mosquito net,
• a shirt,
• a skirt or shorts,
• a T-shirt,
• a sweater,
• two towels,
• a school bag,
• a writing pad,
• a geometry box,
• pencils,
• a ruler, and
• a lunch box.

Your $30 donation for a bedkit goes a long way in India. Because the children see that someone cares for them enough to help them get a decent night's sleep, their world has become better.

Jean Hutton
for the SCAW 2008 Chennai Team

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