I now know that I will be spending the majority of my stay in the city of Chennai, on the south east coast.
I spent last week up in Derbyshire at the Oasis training week where I met the lovely people who are in my team: Helen and Sabrina. We will all be sharing a flat in Chennai and will probably be working together for much of the time.
There is another team of three going to India who will be in Bangalore. All six of us will be flying out together on the 2nd of October and will spend the first week in Mumbai together.
We still don't know exactly what we will be doing- it sounds quite flexible and dependant on what our abilities are and what needs to be done. But we did get to hear about what previous teams have been involved in:
- Running football / sports clubs in the three slum communities in the city.
- Tutoring and teaching in maths, english, life skills, etc.
- Helping out in the office.
- Helping to run kids clubs and after school clubs.
In general, I think the most important 'work' will be building relationships with the people we meet out there, rather than trying to get loads of stuff done. "People matter more than things."
Some beautiful photos of the Derbyshire Dales early one morning:
