The team woke this morning to a brilliant blue sky and bright sunshine. The high-country morning air was crisp, clean, and full of the sound of birdcalls. At nearly 8000 feet above sea level, it is much cooler here than Chennai and most team members elected to wear a fleece pullover as they left their warm beds and headed to the dining building. A hearty breakfast was shared with our travelling Rotarian partners. Having scouted the distribution site the day before, the team felt well prepared for the site setup. At 8:45am, we loaded into our vans and headed to the school. We did expect some children to be present, but what a surprise, the multiple balconies of the school were lined with students, repeatedly yelling “HELLO”!
Another surprise was that our local Rotarian partners had arrived at 6:00am and organized the distribution site into various stations. Each station had a sign marking its purpose: Registration and Uniform Distribution area, Girls Change Room, Boys Change Room, Photo Area, and Bedkit Distribution Area. In addition, the local Rotarians had erected large canvas awnings over each station to protect us for the hot sun. The objective for today was to distribute 609 bedkits. To truly understand the full impact of this distribution, one needs to appreciate that today’s bedkit recipients came from 55 schools servicing 68 tribal mountain villages ranging as far away as 40 km. As the students changed into their new clothes, the SCAW team organized themselves into two photo teams and the distribution was underway. The photo shoot and bedkit distribution went extremely well and this could not have happened without the support of a local group of high school seniors.
I should mention, this is my first trip with SCAW and my first time in India. Today, it was my job to hand-out bedkits and to provide exit security. This gave me the opportunity to have close interactions with both students and their parents. It is a heartwarming experience to watch a small child nervously approach you, wondering what will happen next, and then leave with a bedkit in hand, a big smile, and a softly whispered “Thank You”. It is equally touching to watch the child deliver the bedkit to their mother, watch her smile and hug her child, and then have her turn to you and thank you personally for such a wonderful gift. After the distribution, the team joined the Rotarians for a wonderful lunch at a beautiful local inn. This was followed by a walking tour of the “Colony of Homes” and a visit to two homes that were recipients of today’s distribution. The colony of homes is a cluster of connected concrete homes with corrugated steel roofs built on a mountain slope. Each home is not much larger than a one-car garage, comprised of 3 or 4 rooms, in which an entire family lives. In the colony, communal drinking water and toilet facilities are the norm.
As many of us remarked after the tour, the homes of these children are such a contrast from what one would envision for them. This is real poverty!! But yet, they arrive at school, uniforms clean, wonderfully groomed and smiling. One last very important note: SCAW has been doing a distribution in Yercaud off-and-on over the last 13 years and in that time, school attendance and retention has increased by 20%. The local Rotarians directly attribute this incredible statistic to our bedkit distributions. Great work everyone!!!
Trevor Ryan
Team Chennai 2019
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