Emily Johnston speaks ! one of teh Volunteer who stayed with us for 3 months
On the 14th September last year, I set out on perhaps one of the
biggest adventures of my life so far; I was flying to India to work at
PCTC, a centre in a rural area as a volunteer for disabled adults and
children for 3 months.
The experience was incredible and challenging; I was working with
15 children aged 2 – 15 with a range of mental and physical disabilities.
The children come to the school to learn independence, socialising
and general care for themselves. My role was to bring new ideas for
activities and games for the children. As the school was in quite a poor
area there were little or no resources meaning that the children’s day
could become repetitive and monotonous, the volunteers like me were
there to provide different games and craft to keep them entertained
whilst teaching them to work together with the other children. It
kept me on my toes, having to conjure up games and activities out of
practically nothing, thinking creatively and planning activities that will
keep the easily distracted children entertained for an hour or so! It
also meant that when I was working with a group of the children, the
teachers had more time to spend with the children individually, doing
physiotherapy and speech therapy with them.
I loved working with the children; they showed me so much love
and gratitude for whatever I did for them. Despite the language barrier
I built up ways to communicate with the children. It was hard to
comprehend some of these children’s background, parents who didn’t
want anything to do with them because of their learning disability or
physical deformity; whilst I was there I showed as much love as I could
to these children. Now I am home, I miss them a lot, their smiley faces
and their curious natures. The contrast is huge between how disabled
people are viewed in our country compared to India. It is horrible to
think that without this school the children would be neglected at home,
it makes you realise how important charities like these are.
The school has been built up by a man called Xavier, to provide a
place not only for the children to learn but he also employs the children
who have outgrown the school to work around the centre. He also
runs 10 night schools in local villages to teach children who do not
have good access to a daytime school, and runs outreach programmes
for women – ‘women empowerment’ – enabling the women to work
together to get a bank account, normally not be possible without their
husbands, so learning independence from their husbands. Xavier also
owns a farm about 2km away from the main centre, where he employs
local men and women to pick the fruit to sell in a shop that he was
building whilst I was staying there. The main purpose of the farm is to
teach other local farmers about organic farming.
PCTC is a brilliant place, it opens up possibilities for people in the
local community who would not normally be given any
opportunities and who would otherwise be outcasts and
ignored. The centre teaches people ‘collective self reliance’,
it is hugely beneficial for the local community.
During my 3 months I managed to fit in a little bit of
travelling, a small group of us caught the overnight train to
the other side of India, Kerala. It was stunning, a beautiful
state in India and a complete contrast to the noisy, polluted
city of Chennai. We rode elephants, visited spice and tea
plantations and watched many beautiful sunsets. The Indian
people are so willing to help and are so friendly; it made my whole time
in India so much more enjoyable, being surrounded by lovely people.
India is such a different country, the culture is completely different
and so is the way of life. I loved my time in India, and will definitely be
returning, there is so much more to see and my time as a volunteer was
very rewarding and hopefully made a difference to the children’s lives
who I worked with even if only in a small way.
Thank you to everyone to who kindly sponsored me towards
working in this incredible centre. To find out more about the Peoples
Craft Training Centre visit; www.pctcability.org
Emily Johnston
