Day 7

Hello everyone.

This morning we were back to an early start as we headed off to the resource centre for another busy day of painting, teaching and slum visits. The walls are really starting to come alive and walking down the hall feels somewhat like swimming through an aquarium. The children are very enthusiastic and willing to help with the painting as they see the transformation of the resource centre.

Some of the team held conversation classes with the college students in the morning helping to improve their English. 

This was extremely interesting as both the team and students learnt more about each other’s culture. However, this soon turned into a dance off…we’ll let you decide who wins…..

In both the morning and afternoon 2 groups visited the slums where we were invited into many homes. 

Today the children learnt the English names for different parts of the body. This activity worked really well as a lot of the words were new to the children and they enjoyed using models to point out different features.

Here's Adam's blogspot on the geography of India.


- India is the seventh largest country in the world.
- The Himalayas border the North of India, the biggest mountain in that range being Mount Everest.
- Rivers flow from the Himalayas which are snow fed and so can occasionally cause floods.
- The population of India crossed the billion mark at the turn of the millenium.
- India, according to a recent census has 1,652 dialects. The main ones are; Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, 
Tamil, Telugu and Urd.






Now we'll hear a little from Rebecca on education in India.




- There are 268 million illiterate people in India, unable to read, write or make a reasoned decision. This is almost a third of the world's total number.
- Girls receive on average only 1.8 years of schooling in India, whereas we receive on average 11 years of schooling.
- In the UK, the average class has 30 students, but in India the average is 83!
- According to statistics 2/3 of children in India are enrolled in school, but this is deceptive as many don't attend. At least half of all students from rural areas drop out before completing school.
- While more than 95% of children attend primary schools, just 40% of Indian adolescents attend secondary school.
- The number of out of school children decreased from 25 million in 2003 to an estimated 8.1 million in 2010, so things are improving rapidly.




By Rebecca, Rachel N, Rachel K and Sara.