Newsletters

NEWSLETTER March 2010

Dear all.
We are now starting to feel comfortable with the new rented children’s home. It is centrally located to schools and shopping. The children are really excited to be here, also because there is plenty of room to play outside.
We are so lucky that our neighbour is a major medical clinic. They have offered us free care to all our children, even medicine is free. This is a really good thing, and we make use of it already.
2 rooms have been made for the Danes who come down as volunteers or as part of their education. So now there are rooms for 2 Danes in each home. It's good for us to have Danes there. In this way we will always have more control over daily lives, shopping, etc.
 More children have been taken in, so we have 80 wonderful kids. It is so good to see how quickly the children accommodate, feel happy and smile.
In both orphanages children are of different ages. Now the youngest child is little charming Lotus of three years. She is so spoiled by all the older children. Even boys from boarding school carry her around. Happily she says "I love my big brother", and to me she says "Mammy kiss". This feeling of having so many beautiful children is just so wonderful.
The children have received statements and grades. The highest grade was 91.7 points out of 100. Are we not allowed to be a little proud?
There are several foreign projects that are interested in supporting us, among others there is one from Vancouver. They have paid for mosquito nets for windows. This NGO has chosen us as one out of 10 they want to support, but I do not know how much.
Another one who has shown interest is Sister Mary. Her children have visited us and played and painted with our children. She will also support us with money. A 3rd NGO is on the way to help us.
Our project is becoming internationally known. It is really nice because it costs a lot of money being so many.
The “Miniature” company who have supported us from the start with clothes and money, have this year persuaded Mary Mc Cartney to design their children shirt. It has proved to be successful, so it will be interesting to see how much money it might bring in.
Furthermore, we have received 50,000 dkr. from the fund ”Magrethegården”. It is very nice that so many support our children.
Carsten Saunte and Nicole Saunte accompanied me this time to visit their child they sponsor. Carsten is a senior consultant in ear, nose and throat diseases. All children were thoroughly checked. His conclusion was that the children were in an incredibly good health. Really nice!
Imagine …. a great bunch of children looking expectantly at you .... “Please, can we have a television?” The enthusiasm wouldn’t stop when the answer was “yes.”

Thanks to you all for supporting my project.
Love

December 2009.

Dear members and sponsors.

Another year has gone, and we are happy to see that our children are well, do prosper and are happy.

We have not had much disease. It was mainly the new children who have come to the orphanage, who have been sick.

We now have 75 children in total. Ages range from approximately three and a half years to the oldest girl. We have always believed that she was around 17-18 years, but the Danish dentist Finn Normander, who was down there in March, rated her for about 22 years.

All children and adults, about 90 people, were given a thorough dental inspection, and it is with pride that I can tell you, that there were only 5 who was sent for treatment by local dentists.  

We now send children to Catholic and Buddhist schools, and we are trying to get the rest into a temple school.
It is hard to get 75 children into the same school. There is no on school which has that capacity, so we try to find the best schools for all, and therefore some of the children have to wait.

We will move the rest of the kids to a new location just outside Bodh Gaya. This is necessary if the children must continue their schooling. We do not have the tools needed for the higher classes, and are not able to transport so many children at once. Most of them are able to walk to school.

We have been fortunate that Michael Falch and Poul Krebs performed in Bio Bernhard, Præstø. A truly wonderful evening.

Again this year we participated at Roskilde cattle show and later on in Luffes Court in Stege, where we sold various items, given to us by friendly people.

The last initiative was launched in Mern where we held an event with performance by journalist Vagn Simonsen.                                          Later on, Niels White accompanied by Tom Folting, sang and played music of his own.

Christina and Pia from the support group had made 210 calendars, which all have been sold.

I thank all of the groups as well as all the performers for their formidable help. Also a big thank you to every one
who supports the project.

We have started a women's project for 5 women. Four of them got a goat, and one got a pig. When the animals give birth, each woman should give one “baby” to another woman. So, now 10 women are involved. Next time I come to Bodh Gaya, we will do the same in another village. In this way, the women will be able to feed their families.

With the desire for a blessed and peaceful Christmas and a happy New Year
I send you all my affectionate greetings.

News letter about our voyage June 2009.

Dear all.
This time we were five persons going to India: Finn, our dentist, Anne-Marie, our teacher, two young people: Mie and Morten, plus yours truly.

We have placed photos from the trip at our site.

It was truly exciting to go out there and experience for ourselves how well things progressed with the new Children’s Home 2 in Bodh Gaya, the one we started in 2008.
It was important to see whether children and adults all were thriving, whether the children were happy within their new schools and how things developed, now that the children from our two orphanages were separated from each other.

Everything went even better that could be expected. Usually the children from Children’s Home 2 went twice a month to see those living at Children’s Home 1 in Kosila (8 km from Bodh Gaya). Sometimes it was the other way round.

Earlier this year Michael Falch and Poul Krebs gave a concert at the Bio Bernhard at Præstø. Once again it was a huge success presenting us with a profit of about 40,000 kr. This amount allowed us, among other things, to build a pavilion for the Children’s Home 2. At this home we had long needed a room where everybody could assemble at once.

Our dentist Finn had time to examine the teeth of all the children. He found a most rewarding result: among all the children only three needed further treatment.

Before leaving Anne-Marie had addressed herself to Lego and had been given a large box of toys meant for India.
So, as usual, we brought a considerable overweight n the plane. Fortunately Finn Air has always proven extremely generous with us – this time was no exception. J

Morten and Mie smoothly adapted the ways and works of our every day’s activities. It warms our hearts to see how openly and gladly our children accept any Dane who joins us out there.

We also started a small and rather primitive school in a remote village at the outskirts of Gaya, called Vill-Jaitia. Both adults and children can now go there in order to learn how to read and write.

From the kindergarten Skovmosen at Roskilde in Denmark we were given money for a picnic for everybody at the children’s home. It was an unforgettable day. 70 children and 20 adults participated in the trip. We bathed under a big fountain (which was icy cold, and we girls joined in keeping all our clothes on).

The cook and his helpers were busily cooking all day long. The children consumed quite considerable amounts of food – of course.

Another piece of good news is that we have been given money for buying a wonderful, big car with room for twenty children and air-conditioning. That is not a luxury as long as the temperature often rises to 47 degrees Celsius at this time of the year.

Our five boys living at the boarding school are doing well, and they have adjusted to being far from their homes. One of them described it this way: “Mommy, we miss you all every minute of every day, but we know that this is our one chance to give back help to the Children Home later on in life”.

With these lines I close this news letter, expressing my thanks to each and every one of you who support our cause.

All my love
Yrsa

Newsletter December 2008

Again Sunway Children Home has had a very successful year! It started with a concert by Sebastian giving a surplus of 48.000 dkr. This night was in everybody’s opinion fantastic. Later  Greve/Hundige Rotary Club and Michael Falch put up another fantastic concert making 100.000 dkr.
From our sponsor Miniature we received a check of 11.000 euro (approx. 82.000 dkr.) together with a lot of beautiful clothes for the children. From Vordingborg Rotary Club we received 28.000 dkr. for micro loans and children in boarding schools. Our stand at Roskilde cattle show brought in 15.000 dkr.

5 of our children have passed the entrance examination for a fine boarding school not far from our children’s home in the village of Kosila just 8 km outside Bodh Gaya. At the beginning they suffered from homesickness but now they are happy to be there. Like in other boarding schools they only go home for vacation or holidays. Miniature, the Rotary Clubs of Vordingborg and Greve/Hundige, and two private sponsors sponsor these children.

On the 1st of December 2008 I started a second children’s home in the city of Bodh Gaya. 25 of our 70 children in Kosila are transferred to this new home. They are all taken in into good schools. The time has come where the older children should receive more education that what we could give them at our own school. Also these children have been through an entrance examination and everybody passed.

We were lucky to have a Danish lady at each home. Adiba Lange lives in the home in Bodh Gaya and Birgit Lilian Hansen in the village of Kosila. A good connecting link between us and the children’s homes.

We have now inoculated more than one thousand children. At the moment we primarily inoculate against hepatitis.

We still give some children and adults food or money for food. Some have stopped getting money because they can now take care of themselves while some new individuals have joined up for food or money.

Our newest child is brought to us by an Indian organisation that mainly helps psychically ill women. She is a small girl of 5 years. Her father is dead, her mother has disappeared and local villagers have taken care of her up to now.

On the 1st of January 2009 we shall close our school in Kosila for everybody except our own students. The local authorities have built a large school close to ours for the village children. This is a good public initiative, which we wish all the best.

15 of the children are very intelligent , and we hope we can take them to a better school in Bodh Gaya.

There will come quite a few photos on our home page first in 2009. The photographer Ole Hansen must edit the photos first. We i.e. Selma, Ole and I did not get home until the 11th of December.

Our engagement and projects in India are still increasing. This means that I cannot deal with everything on my own and that we must be more working together. Therefore we have now set up a micro group of three persons with the purpose to raise money for the projects, and a developing group coming up with new ideas for example arrangements, contacts to businesses or contacts to the public through the medias. The support group helps in many ways at arrangements and otherwise.

Thank you to everybody who supports the project, all co-workers and all contributions – we need it all.

I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

December 17th 2008                                                       Best regards Yrsa Solveig Grüning.