How our former students are thriving in the world of work… news on our outreach programme… some lovely pictures from Chennai… latest fundraising news.

It’s all in our 2024 newsletter.

 

 

We are so sad to report that trustee Amanda Morris-Drake died in October 2024, after a short illness. During 2023, she had visited Chennai to see the work of Batemans-Satkaarya for the first time. Below are the reflections she shared in our 2023 newsletter.

 

To be in India is to know one is alive. To be in India is to know intimately the struggle to survive, to feel the merciless gaze of misfortune from every crossroad and every pavement, to feel it burn into your shoulder and whisper in your ear “I will not forget you next time.”

These words from photographer Olivier Föllmi resonate as I reflect on my visit to Chennai and the Satkaarya Trust. One cannot help but feel the onslaught on every sense in your body as you arrive at Chennai airport and drive through the frenetic traffic-filled streets. After a dusty, hot tuk tuk ride we arrived at the girls’ hostel and were welcomed by project director Monica Augustine.

A nurturing environment
My first impressions were of a calm sanctuary in the middle of a crazy city. I was immediately impressed by the warmth of Monica and the staff. They provide a nurturing environment for the vulnerable children in their care. As we were shown round and met the girls as they arrived home from school, I was particularly struck by the girls’ self-esteem and wish to lead independent lives.

Outreach programme
Later in the week fellow trustee Becky Sewell and I saw the outreach programme in action on the site where we plan to build our own school. Logesh, the social worker, had made good contacts with local families and at the time of our visit up to 18 children aged between three and six years old were attending regularly. It was wonderful to see them responding so happily to stories, songs and activities in both Tamil and English.

Mental health challenges
During my visit I spoke at length to Monica about the mental health issues some children face, and the challenges this gives the staff. It brought home to me the importance of the supporting role played by Batemans. We are now planning to provide the staff with additional training in managing mental health so they can have confidence that they are doing all they can for the children and young people in their care.

Overall, it was an absolute pleasure to meet our team in Chennai and see first-hand what a wonderful job they do. The happy smiling faces of the children are a testament to this.

Trustee Paul Crosby took time away from work early this year to fulfil a challenge he’d first considered whilst in Chennai volunteering for the Batemans Trust in 1998. 

During that year, undertaking conservation work for Batemans, he had dreamt of buying a Royal Enfield Bullet, a motorbike still being made in Chennai, and riding it all the way back to his home in Kendal, Cumbria.

After running out of excuses and reasons not to do it, Paul learnt to ride a motorbike earlier in this year and the dream became a reality as he flew to Chennai to begin the 18,000 mile journey, travelling through 18 countries, over Himalayan mountain ranges and across central Asian deserts on an epic four month adventure.

The simple plan was to ride the Karakoram Highway and the Silk Road from China back to Europe, and hope to bring awareness and raise funds for Batemans Trust along the way.

He started the journey by spending some precious days at the girls hostel in Chennai, being impressed by the independence of these incredible young women.  He took time to test riding the bike and going out to see the outreach project in action in Sendrambakkam, the site of our proposed school, where Batemans is already helping the children of local communities with its outreach programme.

Waving goodbye

 

By the beginning of April with the bureaucracy dealt with, the Enfield engine roared and Paul waved goodbye to a leaving party of smiling girls at the hostel and headed north across central India.

His planned route took him through the India plains and up into Nepal, part of which, from Agra to Kathmandu was shared with Lawrence Jacob, a friend and old St George’s student who made the start of the journey so much more interesting, from laughing over spicy cucumbers and juicy mangoes bought from street sellers in India to an epic seat of the pants side trip to remote Mustang valley in the West of Nepal.

In Kathmandu Paul was joined by his nephew Alex Wilton who had enthusiastically agreed to go in to Tibet with him and together they completed a huge loop across the Tibetan plateau to Lhasa, the spiritual home of Buddhism in the East, taking in Everest base camp on the return journey to Kathmandu.

Alex was even newer to motor biking than Paul, who now had a few thousand miles under his belt, having only passed his test weeks before arriving in Nepal!    

High passes, frozen fingers thawed out on cups of Tibetan salty butter tea, mixed with huge landscapes and dramatically perched Buddhist monasteries made Tibet unforgettable.

After some much-needed motorbike repairs Paul strapped his kit to the Bullet and left Kathmandu, descending briefly to the Terai seeing tigers and hippos in Nepal’s Bardia National Park before climbing into the hills.  Travelling slowly he went up past Haridwar making Puja submerged in the holy river, and on to Rishikesh, performing Aarti, the Hindu ceremony of light, and sending a lamp along the Ganges wiping away his sins. 

Along the Ganges
Paul continued on and upwards to the start of the Indian Himalaya in Himachal Pradesh, eventually reaching the high and remote Buddhist city of Leh in Ladakh, on a dusty Bullet starved of oxygen from the altitude going over 5500m snow topped passes and bouncing along unmade roads gouged into the sides of mountains.

Lake Pangong, at over 80 miles, felt endless, stretching through military zones westward across into Tibet; its serene ice blue water and colourful mountains were an isolated highlight.

The mountain passes nearly finished off the Bullet and with a clogged fuel injector, stretching timing chain and burnt-out clutch the bike was hoisted into the back of a truck for a small final section of the mountainous road back to Dharamsala, the home of the Dalai Lama.

“My gratitude goes to Adarsh, the gentleman trucker who saved me and took me to the nearest Enfield garage in Manali,” says Paul. “With the bike serviced the road descended to Amritsar and its magnificent Sikh Golden Temple on the western edge of India before crossing the Wagah border to Pakistan and Lahore. This was the start of the Karakoram Highway and I headed north through Islamabad towards the apple orchards of the Hunza Valley, at one section riding with an armed motorbike escort and at another staying in a fortified hotel with armed guards.

“The journey took me along increasingly narrower roads in tight river valleys as this ancient pass cut into the mountains connecting Pakistan and the Indus Valley to Kashgar, the oasis town in western most China and a major hub on the Silk Road. 

Dream come true

 

“It was a dream come true to start passing through places I’d only heard of in almost mythical stories. Kashgar led on to Osh along the Pamir Highway in Kyrgyzstan and through the mountains to Bishkek where I managed to finally secure my route from central Asia back to the middle east by gaining a rare Russian visa. 

“Now came Central Asia as I travelled from oasis town to oasis town visiting the ancient cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva as I ventured deeper into Uzbekistan before heading across the endless straight roads of Kazakhstan, its sand and salt marshes, towards the Russian border.

“Having made two good Russian friends while riding in Tibet, I was fortunate enough to be guided through Russia, sampling caviar and cold vodka and being looked after with generosity before moving from Chechnya up through fume-choked tunnelled passes out into the fresh wooded mountains of Georgia with its mediaeval hilltop abbeys, decaying soviet architecture and forgotten spas, where Stalin once bathed.

“Once across the border in to Eastern Turkey the trees disappeared and the heat of what was once Mesopotamia hit me as I visited Mount Nemrut, the ancient city of Mardin and the prehistory of Gobekli Tepe, considered the oldest temple in the world at 12,000 years old.  

“Moving through Turkey I enjoyed the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world and, moving north, the equally famous Troy, site of the Trojan war, in the Dardanelles. 

“Turkey was brought to a close with a visit to Istanbul, its mix of Christian and Muslim culture showing me I was now entering Europe. My intention had been to go through Greece and cross to southern Italy by boat, but I decided at the last minute to ride through the beautiful and under-explored Balkans taking in Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia on my whistlestop tour to northern Italy.

“Now truly in Europe my adventure felt more like an 18th century architectural grand tour as I took in Venice to give my nod to Marco Polo and the end of his, but not my, Silk Road, visiting Palladian architecture in Vicenza and reuniting with my family to relax by a lake, get used to being with people again and wash some clothes!

“A sleepover in the shadow of the Matterhorn finished my stay in Italy.  I rode through the long tunnel to France and Chamonix, where I bumped into an old climbing partner to reminisce about the mountains before spending another night in a mountain hut as a farewell to the hills.”

Afterwards he rode up through France and crossed the channel to a hero’s welcome from friends as he did a victory lap around the uk to end up  parking his bike outside his house in Kendal with his family cheering me home.

“Almost instantly it had been the people who had made the journey into something special. The generosity and kindness of the strangers who helped me along the way is what I will keep with me. From the girls in the Batemans Hostel in Chennai right through to the Marcin, who helped me change my flat tire on the M6 an hour from home!”

 

 

Thanks to your support a new dimension to our activity in Chennai has been launched: Satkaarya’s wraparound care programme.

Wraparound care is provided for needy children whose home environment is chaotic, unstable and often even dangerous.

These children are impoverished and malnourished and also face the risk of being victims of all kinds of abuse, including substance abuse. Such children are identified by our social worker, Mr Peters, who has good experience in dealing with parents in difficult situations and convincing them to send their children to school.

How does it work?

The children attend local Little Lambs School in the day and are then dropped off at our wraparound care centre. The children spend four hours at the centre where they are washed and cleaned, fed nutritious snacks and meals and then given the necessary holistic educational support. The evening is organised in such a way so as to accommodate physical exercise, yoga, sports, recreational games, art activities, with some literacy and numeracy. The little boys and girls are also taught basic hygiene, proper eating habits and values while managing behaviour in a positive manner.

The outcome

Currently eight children are attending the wraparound programme. There is scope for more to join in. The success of the programme is that the children are eager to attend school regularly and want to come to the care centre every day. Another highlight of the programme is that the older girls at the Satkaarya home are able to participate in caring for these children. Thanks to the core team of staff who are very dedicated and have made this initiative possible, Batemans-Satkaarya will be able to expand the work to many more vulnerable children.

The picture above shows three of the children who are benefiting from the programme: Muthalagu and her brothers Surya and Pechumuthu.

Below are a few more pictures of children involved in the programme.

‘This year’s Batemans catering stall at the Truck Festival in Oxfordshire was as crazy and brilliant as ever,’ writes trustee Alex Jacob.

‘With 45 wonderful volunteers enthusiastically helping to chop, cook, stir, open tins, wash up and serve about 2,000 portions of food and helping raise more than £17,000. And there was an additional £200 raised by the lovely porridge ladies who used our stall in the morning before people were ready for curries!

‘Trustee Marion Mills masterminded the purchasing so skilfully that we only ended up with a few spare tins at the end (having started with a hall-full of them!). Marion had even managed to procure lots of donated coconut milk after befriending someone on the bus to Oxford!’ (Ed’s note: proof that it’s always worth chatting about Batemans’ charity work to new faces.)

Alex continues: ‘Rachel and Ruth managed to juggle all the volunteers into a timetable of shifts and with a team who had nearly all done it before, we were pretty efficient… but the favourite job for many is still towing the ‘Truck Wagon’ up to the stall laden with steaming tubs of curry! Thank you everyone who made it possible!’

Marion adds: ‘One of the most rewarding elements is the number of return customers – not just during the event itself, but also year after year.’

Want to help a bit more? Then why not enter our autumn raffle. It’s open to all, so do please encourage your friends to join in. You and they could win a lovely prize and all the money raised goes to helping the children in our care. Tickets are £5 per ticket or five tickets for £20.

To buy tickets, click here.

Below are the three raffle prizes:

1st prize: Table set – six placemats and six serviettes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2nd prize: Two embroidered and mirrored cushion covers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3rd prize: Two patchwork cushion covers 

Trustee Paul Crosby is back in the UK after his amazing fundraising ride on a Royal Enfield Bullet, made in Chennai, across half the world from India to the UK.

After starting from the Batemans Trust/Satkaarya hostel for girls in Chennai he worked his way overland back to his home in Kendal, UK. New to this type of motor biking, it proved to be quite an epic adventure.

You can donate to his JustGiving fundraising page here.

 

Project director Monica Augustine reflects on one girl’s remarkable journey with Batemans/Satkaarya.

Mariyammal, who is now 18 years old and pictured above, came to Batemans/Satkaarya at the age of 11. She belongs to the Irular Tribe, a marginalised community marked by economic and social disadvantage.

Mariyammal’s family was rescued from bonded labour by the International Justice Mission and efforts were made to rehabilitate the family.

It was at this time that Mariyammal’s mother expressed interest that her daughters be given an opportunity to find good education so that they could escape the clutches of poverty. This is why the girls were admitted into our home in 2016.

To Mariyammal, being in the city in a new home was a shock to her system, but she adapted herself very well to her new environment. She came with very little knowledge of English reading, writing or speaking. She started learning in the Batemans Open School (our preparation classes for children to bring them up to the level required to attend mainstream schools) and had a slow but steady start to her learning. She showed interest in learning the English language and was very enthusiastic about listening to stories. She enjoyed reading with Batemans volunteers from the UK and benefited a great deal from spending time with them.

Mariyammal’s vocabulary improved consistently and her communication skills became better with each passing year. Mariyammal successfully moved on to regular mainstream school and went on to complete her 10th grade, which was the first major academic milestone in her life.

Most girls in her village had discontinued studies and some had even married by the time they were 16, but Mariyammal took up science for further studies and successfully passed her 12th grade exams in May 2024.

Despite the odds stacked against her, Mariyammal has demonstrated exceptional determination and resilience, emerging as the first matriculate in her entire family.

Mariyammal is pictured (left) when she first came to Satkaarya as an 11 year old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With continued support and guidance from Batemans/Satkaarya, Mariyammal is moving on to university to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature. This is highly commendable and a great success story – Batemans/Satkaarya has helped Mariyammal help herself for life.

Mariyammal is also extremely talented at sports, dance, arts and sculpting. She comes across as a confident young woman ready to take on the challenges of this world and to make a difference in the lives of many girls in her community!

A sponsor’s perspective

Mariyammal’s sponsor Anne Desir says: “I have had the pleasure of sponsoring Mariyammal since she joined the hostel seven years ago and of meeting her on several occasions during that time, the first time being soon after her arrival. She was a very shy 11-year-old, who had no previous experience of English. She loved looking at books, pointing to pictures to learn the English words.

“I also remember her smile and her eagerness to join in. During later visits, I noticed her growing confidence in all she did; her fluency in English improving hugely and her smile had not deserted her! I couldn’t help cheering and clapping when I heard that Mariyammal was starting a BA in English.”

Could you sponsor a child? 

The rewards are enormous! To do so, please visit: www.batemans.org.uk/donating/sponsor-a-child