Day 9

Last night’s ASHA celebration meal went very well. There are currently 4 teams working in Delhi, and the leaders of each team gave a short speech on what they have been doing and how they are getting on. Miss Bassett spoke on our behalf and gave what we thought was the best speech! 

 Dr Kiran Martin concluded the speeches with a word of thanks to the teams. Her passion for the work of ASHA is evident, even after 24 years - she is indeed a very inspirational lady. Dinner was then served which consisted of many Indian dishes plus chicken stroganoff and a potato and leek bake, which we all appreciated!  We benefited from the opportunity to speak with others from the Ballymena builders team, the Doctors group and the team from Dublin. All in all, the evening was a great success and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. 

We spent the morning and afternoon at Tigri finishing off the painting and doing crafts with the kids. We were asked to complete painting in an additional room, and Jessica did a super job, producing images from India and Northern Ireland - Slemish and the Giant's Causeway sitting alongside the Himalayas!

The kids were eager for us to sign our names on their photo frames shouting, “autograph, autograph!” It was like being a celebrity for the day!

Much of the day was also spent playing games outside, mainly cricket and football.

The journey home provided some entertainment - we passed a goat market, and wondered how buyers of the goats would transport them home.  The picture below shows the solution!

We came back to the hotel where we had some much needed chicken sandwiches and cuppa soups.  Shortly we’ll be leaving for Dilli Haat market which is apparently always good for a bargain! (Sounds great for us Ballymena folk!) For tea we plan to revisit the China Garden restaurant, which has provided us with our favourite meal so far!

It’s hard to believe there is only one full day left! But we’re so excited for tomorrow’s celebrations with the ASHA workers and kids…

By Adam, Suzanne, Hannah and Rachel K. 

Today's first blogspot is on Gandhi by Jessica;

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. A pioneer of satyagraha, or resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience — a philosophy firmly founded upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence — Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is often referred to as Mahatma or "Great Soul," an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore). In India, he is officially honoured as the Father of the Nation. His birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers in protesting excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, but above all for achieving Swaraj — the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in protesting the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on many occasions, in both South Africa and India.


Here is Peter's blogspot about the Indian economy;


The Indian economy is worth US$1.632 trillion; it is the world's ninth-largest economy.  Reaching 10.4% growth during 2010, India is one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Widespread state intervention and regulation largely walled the economy off from the outside world. An acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 forced the nation to liberalise its economy, since then it has been slowly moving towards a free-market system.

The 467-million worker Indian labour force is the world's second largest.  The service sector makes up 54% of GDP, the agricultural sector 28%, and the industrial sector 18%. Major agricultural products include rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, and potatoes. Major exports include petroleum products, textile goods, jewellery, software, engineering goods, chemicals, and leather manufactures. Major imports include crude oil, machinery, gems, fertiliser, and chemicals.

Averaging an economic growth rate of 7.5% during the last few years, India has more than doubled its hourly wage rates during the last decade. Some 431 million Indians have left poverty since 1985. Its telecommunication industry, the world's fastest growing, added 227 million subscribers during 2010–11. 

India contains the largest concentration of people living below the World Bank's international poverty line of US$1.25 per day, the proportion having decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005.  Half of the children in India are underweight, and 46% of children under the age of three suffer from malnutrition. Corruption in India is perceived to have increased significantly, with one report estimating the illegal capital flows since independence to be US$462 billion.