Clothes Donations | Goa Outreach: An average Day...... | Arambol Carnival

We are always very lucky in the support we get with clothes. We regularly receive donated clothes, and are really delighted when we open up a bag and smell the fresh laundry and start to un-wrap the children’s clothes. As we sort through them and put them into boys and girls piles and separate them by age we are always going though the children thinking, 'oh, Jyoti would look lovely in this or that would be great on Kumar etc'. We also get quite a few items that aren’t our children’s sizes, the children we help are aged from 6 Years to 18 years and they are generally small and slim for their age. We get some super cute baby clothes and toddlers and hand them out when we have a good collection. The majority of the clothes we get are adult sizes, and some of the bigger students do take a few; other items are given to other charities and the remaining are up-cycled into pencil cases, bags etc.

One thing I must say though is please do not send torn, dirty clothing as even though the families we help are poor they still want to look good, as anyone would.

We have recently been given some beautiful clothes from Sheila from Delhi who manufactures clothes for retail shops in the UK and with each shipment she has a few extras and these quickly add up, so Sheila has recently delivered our first 'lot' of clothes. They are stunning, very western in style so not really suitable for the mothers we help, but the older girls love them and Sheila has said that they can be used to generate donations, we have already had a couple of locals who have donated towards a few and there is a great selection still available. Obviously the children get first choice and they love checking out new clothes. But sadly most are just that little bit too big for them.

A video filmed in less than 2 hours following what we do on an average day at Goa Outreach by Alessandro Sigismondi who spent just a couple of hours with us a few weeks ago. The video is fantastic and we really are very thankful to him. for the amazing video.

As we walked round the slums we walked past a tiny kitten, which at the time I wondered why he was filming it, but in the video I think its the star! :)

Our deepest appreciation....

Lila organised a great trip to Arambol to take part in the yearly Carnival celebrations. We hired a bus and headed towards Arambol beach in North Goa with around 25 children.

It was all of ours first time to participate in the Carnival on the beach so we weren't sure what to expect. We arrived and was led to the preperation area where there were a group of volunteers who were ready to transform the children into their party persona's The face painters adorned the children's faces with paint and glitter and colourful pieces of material were added to make costumes. While we waited snacks were handed out and it was a lovely atmosphere.

It was soon time to walk down to the beach where we were confronted with locals and tourists alike in crazy outfits ready to celebrate. Sadly due to tentions between India and Pakistan the Carnival was cancelled but that didn't stop us and everyone having a lovely evening.

Thank you to Lila, Vipul, Suman and all the helpers who made sure the children had fun and returned home safely.