Thanks for the information on the voluntourists, Kofi. I have contacted a few. Hopefully we should be able to get some more to help us.

Also, I have forwarded the links you provided to Romina and Pelle.

The good news is that I have been able to find people willing to donate their old PCs (3 in fact - 2 of them are laptops).

Nitin, please mail me the address where you would like these PCs to be sent.

Neighbours: Please help out with finding more PCs if you can.

Cheers
Poonam

Hello Poonam (and Nitin!),

You are a STAR, Poonam! Well done!!! Your positive energy is certainly making a big difference to the pace of this project. Please try and and work on the CEO's of Mumbai's biggest stock brokerages - you are bound to find some sympathetic ones amongst that group of wealthy Indians, for more computers.

And Nitin, try talking to the relevant elected state government officials, about the possibility of a public private partnership (PPP) initiative in which leading Indian industries and businesses, in your home state, which have foreign partners, can improve their green credentials, by investing in a renewable energy project, buying solar panels, for Vadgam.

Such a three-way partnership initiative, involving the state government; the private sector and local communities, could serve as a model, which the state government could use, going forward, to provide services to local communites, all over your home state! Stress that angle to them when you meet with them, to ask for their support, in finding private sector support for your project.

Another idea is to try and talk to the public affairs departments of the biggest of India's new low-cost airlines. If any of them fly into your home state, and have foreign shareholders, they might be keen to be seen as good corporate citizens of India.

And as air travel accounts for a sizeable chunk of greenhouse gas emissions, investing in a renewable energy project, to power computers for the deprived children of Vadgam, would certainly improve their green credentials, considerably!

I am sure Poonam can help out too - particularly if it is something you would rather another neighbour took up, Nitin. I shall keep my fingers crossed for you. And good luck to both you and Poonam. And warmest regards to all at Vadgam!

Best wishes,
Kofi.

Great work poonam,really in a sort time you find a donor for vadgam,its looking good sign for project,ok I will sent you a mail regarding my postal address where pc will be send.Other thing I like to say that we also need to find funds for computer lab expenditure,like space rent,electricity,furniture(table,stool.chair etc).

Kofi:-You really have a good ideas and provide a good suggestion also,here in gujarat assambly election will held on 16th of Decembar.after the formation of new government i will be try to contact elected state government officials.

Thanks,

Regards,

Nitin

Good show, Nitin! You must be persistent when dealing with the politicians - they are largely a super-slippery breed of the human species! Let them put every promise they make to Vadgam, down on paper, PLEASE. Best wishes - and regards to all at Vadgam!

Dear friends
vadgam needs proper support for their needs.material is one of the important as well as the raising of the financial aspects also very important. i think any neighbour comes move forward for this work?
i wish to reach the needy childrens
with regards

Hello Chaitanya,

I welcome you and your suggestions!

We need help with identifying ways that we can fund the child development initiatives in the short term and also the youth club initiatives in the long term.

My thoughts are as follows:

For the short term, we can approach NGOs & other companies to help us with our activities. Also, some portion of the fees paid by voluntourists is retained for the community they visit.

For the long term, I was wondering if we can convert the youth club into a trust or charitable society, so that it will be easier to find donations with an associated tax benefit.

Neighbours: Please provide your thoughts on the same.

Cheers
Poonam

Dear poonam

Thanks for your complement. your idea is very good. first you need to identify the funding channels as well as the process.if you running any youth club then you need to convert it as society under society registration act or trust under indian trusts act 1882. it is better for getting funding and getting tax benefits.
you need to approach so many funding agencies and child rights networks like crin.org, savethechildrenuk.org etc. if any possible you work with jointly any NGO like us.

if any further details you want or doubts chaithanya is there for you

my email
saveanimalsbcm@rediffmail.com
chaithanyalawyer@rediffmail.com
bye for now

Hello Poonam,

When you finally get the matter of the legal personality of the sports club(which I agree definitely has to be a non-profit!) out of the way, may I suggest that you consider a carbon sequestration project, involving that marvelous tree, the Moringa oleifera, as a viable and sustainable revenue generating source, for the running of the club ?

If you opt for this idea, I will do my best to link you up with EU and UK out-bound eco-tour operators, who would probably be happy to offer clients travelling to india, the opportunity to neutralise some of their their holiday carbon footprint, by having moringa oleifera planted for them, for a small fee, by the Vadgam sports club.

Naturally, I am assuming that you do have land available for such a project. I recommend that all Vadgam's neighbours google to find out more about this wondrous plant - which has more protein in it than any plant on earth. Its dried leaves can be made into powder and used as a food supplement.

An acknowledged world authority on the plant, Mr. Lowell Fugle and his wife, did a project in Senegal - and for the 16 years of the duration of the project, changed the nutritional status of the children in the communities that took part in the project, for the better, dramatically. The leaves also be make an excellent folair fertilizer, for organic farming - and also provides nutritious animal fodder.

We are lucky to have had Mr. Fuglie and his wife in Ghana - and they have done some collaborative work with a Moringa oleifera research team at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana. My own family is actually currently planting Moringa oleifera, on one of our farms!

This is Mr. Fuglie's contact email address, Poonam, if you want to take this up, further: . Regards to all at Vadgam - and good luck!

Best wishes,
Kofi.

Dear All,

How to childrens,

Be Courageous
Be enthusiastic
Be committed
Be optimistic
Be disciplined
Be competent
Be persistent

I think we also need to work on above topic as per child development programme.I welcome your ideas & Valuable suggestion to make a project plan including such type of topic.

We hope to doing well to encouarge childrens to provide them a opportunity to work on a computer(Hope we will receive donated PC in few days)We are thankful to poonam to find donor for old pc.we also thankful to such a people who share there contribution in nobel work.

I am requesting you all of you to pl.find such people who have a material for donate as well as development thoughts for share with us.

Thank you once agian all of you and wish you all of a merry chrismas.

Regards,

Nitin

Hello,

Nice to see so much has been done on this task.
Here's a link to a site that might be helpful in finding more computers as well as other things. Global Hand, it's sort of an E Bay for charities and ngo's. It connects donors with those who need donations. Thousands of listings to check, all the info on shipping, laws, etc. If you have ngo status, you can register and use the site to reach out to those who might be able to help. This includes volunteering services as well.

I agree with Kofi on taking the route of ecology and enviornment. I'll try to research the plant. India is also into bio-fuel and alternative energy sources. Any chance of that being of any interest?

Sincerely,
Estelle

home.htm

Hello Poonam and Nitin,

Perhaps both of you can become members of freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/), and obtain all the equipment Vadgam needs, that way.

That will add to what you can obtain from the link, which Estelle so genrously passed on to you.

Hello Estelle, it appears we have migrated together from Matopeni to Vadgam, in our journeys through the various villages, on www.nabuur.com

And remembering the sound of the only two words that helped me connect with people as I drove round Crete and Rhodes, years ago (in the 1980's!), let me say: "Yasus" to you - and "Efaristo" for the link!

They are about the only words I remember, from holidays in Crete and Rhodes - in my younger and more adventurous days!

Best wishes,
Kofi.

Hello Estelle and Kofi

Thanks for a good link.

Hello All,

I am requesting and welcome all of you to pl.join with us to study the link provided by our valuable active neighbours and find out the result from it for child development project.
Regards,

Nitin

Hello all neighbours,

Wish you a very happy new year 2008!

I have been away for a while, hence not been able to respond to all the messages.

I am in the process of getting information on how to set up a trust, so that we can approach people for donations. I should be able to get the required information in a day or two.

Request all neighbours to come forward to help us plan activities for the child development programme. We need to submit a plan to the organisation that has approached us with volun-tourists.

Cheers
Poonam

As I have been reading through the posts, I noticed that there is some indication as to what the curricular needs are for Vadgam. I think it also depends on the issues in the village and what Nitin perceives to be the greatest need. I suggest that Nitin ask teachers and parents to find out what they feel is important. By collecting information from a variety of resources there in the village, you will get a more well rounded idea of overall needs (although many of these needs may be very evident, like dental care, personal hygiene, bicycle safety, etc.)

As a curriculum developer, without having first hand knowledge or quantitative (or qualitative for that matter)data to determine the village children's needs, I suggest looking at the basic health and safety issues that are present in the village and refine these issues to determine where you are going to start, etc. Someone had suggested using this Unesco website:
http://opentraining.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/page.cgi?g=Categories%2FLife_s...

After perusing the UNESCO site above, I discovered that this is really an excellent resource. "Open Training" has a wide variety of topics from which to choose, and you can download large curriculum guides that go along with the topics. These curriculum guides PROVIDE HANDOUTS in other languages, in addition to bulletin boards, teacher notes, etc. The "Easy to Make Aids for Nutrition Teaching and Learning" is 131 pages and provides useful information for a tutor, volunteer, or teacher. Here is the site: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0006/000631/063100eb.pdf and I am attaching the booklet.

On a personal note, I am just learning the Nabuurs' form of posting, etc., so if I reiterated something that has already been discussed, or finished, I apologize. I have been pretty clueless about figuring out the scope of everything, and I am still not proficient. :-?

Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Brenda :-)

nutrition teaching aids.pdf

Have any of you tried Kofi's suggestion about Freecycle?

I had heard of "freecycle" but never really used it. After reading Kofi's post, I went to the site and actually registered for my area. In the past week I have received 3 children's bicycles, stuffed toys, a rocker, a blood pressure machine, children's games, and books! (IN ONE WEEK!!) I have been astounded by what I have found. In my neighborhood area it is called "cyfairfreecycle." It is a yahoo group and I am on an email list that sends me everything that is being given away in my neighborhood area.

Needless to say, this has been quite an incredible experience! I am collecting items for Kisumu Project, Inc. to ship to Kenya for YGC's Mbita Vocational Training Center, which is a new school that is being built. If you have not tried Free Cycle, I encourage you to at least look at it. My only expense has been driving to a designated "drop spot" to meet the person who is "freecycling" to pick up the things I have requested. Thank you, Kofi! Your tip (and I understand Estella's from prior to that) has helped me in my other endeavors! :-D

As for Vadgam's use of Freecycle, this would be a way to get developmental games, art materials, other sports equipment, etc, for free. I do not know the logistics on how someone in another country could get that to Vadgam, but it is worth exploring!

Be Well, my friends,
Brenda :-)