February 17, 2008 - Tamil Nadu, India

The George Foundation – Shanti Bhavan

At the school assembly today (we have a school assembly every day except Sunday) the pre-schoolers came and gave a little presentation.  Each child came up to the front and told the school their age, their name, and their parents’ names (this is a feat particularly because they’ve all just started learning English this year).  It’s hard to describe how cute these 4 year olds were, especially as the odd one had to be reminded of a parent’s name.  I don’t think I’d have felt comfortable speaking in front of a crowd of 200+ at the age of four.  What I really found jarring though, was when we found out later that one of the little girls – who hadn’t stood out from the others and had listed her parents’ names without any noticeable hesitation – had actually just lost both parents.  She’d lost her father very recently, her mother over the school holiday a month ago.  This would be difficult enough for anyone, but in addition to this it turned out that the mother had died in a kerosene-fueled death by fire.  Murder or suicide wasn’t clear.  The father’s cause of death was also unclear.  The child is four years old.

Sometimes one forgets the backgrounds that these children we’re working with are coming from.  It’s easy to forget, because everything is so clean, nice & well kept here.  Then comes a gruesome little reminder like our post-presentation conversation today, and the impact of what a school like this can do is suddenly much more impressive.  I’ve started reading the book written by the founder of the George Foundation, and have found it very interesting reading.  It discusses a lot of ideas which inevitably come up when you start working with below poverty-line children/people, and that, along with some school meetings we’ve had recently, have made for a thought-provoking past couple of days.