Hello from India Yankee 8

INDIA YANKEE 8

Arriving back in the village for phase two we felt like coming home. Seeing the faces we are familiar with and being happy to see them every morning. We love our village and all our quirky characters which no other village will have.  We have found a nice little retreat near the dam down the road, somewhere where we can go and just have some quiet time.

Phase two has marked the beginning of the beneficiary selection process and construction preparation. The beneficiaries have now been selected and we are visiting them every so often to keep track of when their holes will be dug and their materials ready. We are all eager to begin construction though, in her spare time between organising the materials and working with the beneficiary selection committee, our chair of construction has been working with a beneficiary family’s goat, affectionately known as Popeye.

We have also had our first health camp and are prepping for our second. Our first one went very well and with very little time to prepare we managed to get over 200 people to see the doctors.  We also used the health camp as a way to get across some health awareness training. We divided into groups and gave health awareness classes to people waiting to see the doctors, as well as going out into the village.

India Yankee 8 has become a tight-knit group and get on well together. We have found that we are more efficient at finalising the surveys as well as working together to give health awareness training.  We have been working to battle our communication issues and believe that this is going well - the UK volunteers enjoy learning about a new culture, as do the in-country volunteers. We have gained a new member to India Yankee 8, Ningraj, one of the sons of a beneficiary family has become part of our family. He has excellent English and, at 15 years old he has become a great asset to the team.

Our plans for phase two are relatively simple – CONSTRUCTION. We begin construction on Friday 15^th March and we are looking forward to starting to build. The beneficiary committee will be working with the construction committee to ensure that everyone is doing their part. The secondary project committee will start considering options and the health committee will be organising our health camp on the 13^th March as well as our final one on the 3^rd April. We will be going into schools in order to give health awareness as well this phase – using fun, interactive tools to keep the children engaged whilst teaching them about water and nutrition, diarrhoea, diseases/insects and sanitation.