NER Group, Spain with the help of EDI,
India, organized a social service camp in Kalimpong in June
In Reon Dabling Primary School, one of the
schools where these gifts were given, the school wall had crumbled down due to
rainfall just a night before we (the Ekin and GFF volunteers) visited there. The
school doesn’t have funds to get it repaired and it has become very dangerous
for the students. But the students were very enthusiastic to study. One of the
schools, St. Thomas Primary School, is situated in Longshyel, the most remote
area of Kalimpong Sub-division. This area hardly has any connectivity with the main land. There are no
roads constructed in this area. In fact we were extremely surprised to know
that even today this area doesn’t have any electricity supply leave aside
mobile network. No wonder the whole village had gathered in the school to see
the installation of the solar lights the NER group had given them. We can’t
even imagine what the value of those solar lights is for the people there and
how grateful the people are.
The
students as well as the teachers everywhere were overjoyed on receiving the
generous gifts. They extended a very warm welcome to the volunteers and
honoured them with their traditional scarves called “Khada” in their local
language. The students in the various schools presented an excellent cultural
programme. The volunteers from Ekin India also performed some skits and dances
for the children and local people. The Ekin volunteers had camped on the
grounds of S.S.S. Reon Primary School.
NER and
EDI arranged full floor repairs of the S.S.S. Reon Primary School which was
earlier in a very bad shape. All the classes were run in a single room. NER and
EDI got wooden partitions made to separate all the classes. Ekin and GFF volunteers
painted the whole school. Mr. B.T. Lepcha, one of the founders of the Reon SSS
Primary School, S.S.S. Memorial Junior High School and St. Thomas School,
recently visited the GFF Office in Kalimpong. According to him the children are
very happy to receive the new desk and benches, to see the electric lights
which they ahd never seen before, the wonderful books and specially the new
NER and
EDI also organized a medical camp for the people living in the remote areas of
Kalimpong. All the arrangements were made by the GFF volunteers. The EKIN
volunteers helped in conducting the medical camp. There were four doctors and
two pathologists from Kalimpong who had volunteered to come to this camp and
did free medical check-up. For people living in such remote areas, getting
medical check-up done is not at all easy. They have to travel very far and
spend a lot of money. Besides medical check-up, blood grouping of 200 people was
done by Adarsh Nursing Home Pathological Department. This was very important as
people didn’t know their blood groups and in case of an emergency where blood
was required more than 10 people used to travel to hospital which are very far
as they didn’t know whose blood will match with blood of the patient.
The
project ended on 8th June 2014 and all of us from EKIN left
Kalimpong carrying with us the wonderful memories of the tour which we will
cherish throughout our lives. We are really grateful to NER, EKIN, EDI and GFF
for giving us a chance to be a part of this programme. The people who have been
benefitted by this project really needed this support and we are glad we could
do something for them. It is very hard to imagine and even harder to express
how grateful the people of
