Certificate of Excellence | RG Marathon Championship | Baby Sets Given out at District Hospital | Relaxing At The River Bank | Taking 18 students to the dentist today! | Henna Patterns

We were delighted to be awarded from Education Scopup a certificate of Excellence and be highlighted as one of the 10 revolutionary NGO's in India 2021. It is obviously a great honour. Thank you to everyone involved and we hope we can continue giving children a childhood worth remembering.

One of our students has always excelled at sports and has been running for Goa for the past two years. Sunday was the date of the RG Marathon Championship where he competed in the 21km (Half Marathon).

He did exceptionally well and came in second, just missing 1st place by just over 1 minute.

He was awarded a cheque for 31,000 Rs by the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Goa, Dr Pramod Sawant.

We would like to thank the organisers and everyone involved in the event as the event was very professional.

In the last couple of weeks we have been clearing out the store room and realised we still had around 40 new born baby sets still to give out.

The sets were all brand new so Amina and Rob took a trip to ask if it would be possible to give the the new mothers at the Govt District Hospital in Mapusa.

Thankfully the staff were happy for the items to be distributed so we took a quick trip back to the centre to pick up all the baby sets and headed back to the district hospital with one of the girls to give a helping hand.

The babies were split between two wards and Amina and Kalpana gave out to all the new mothers and a few expectant mothers too.

Thank you to the nurses, doctors and staff at the District Hospital.

Thanks and best wishes to all the new and expecting mothers.

Saturday was a relaxing day so we took a few of the children for a small walk down to the nearby river, it was a lovely outing and a bright sunny day here in Goa.

On one Friday each month, we take up to 18 students to and from the dentist to see the Orthodontist who makes a visit to our local dental surgery.

For a lucky few the whole process has already come to an end and they can see and feel the difference the braces have made. For the remaining students, there are at least a few visits sessions of tightening and for 3 students the process has just begun.

The students have had a hard journey up to this point, at the very start as most had to have 4 teeth removed to make space so that their teeth can be straightened. The students are never happy about having a tooth removed, let alone 4! Parents also are hard to convince that taking out perfectly good teeth is a good idea, but after a long conversation and sometimes several times over, the children and parents agree.

After that original shock of having teeth removed, they then have to come to terms with rough metal edges rubbing against the cheeks and it can take weeks for them to get used to the feeling. Then finally after they get used to the rubbing, they have to feel the extra pain related to tightening of the braces each month.

For the students who have finished the process it is now very clear to them that it was a good decision, and although the journey was uncomfortable, it was really worth it.

A special thank you goes to Lila who was the driving force for all the Dental work and especially the braces. She made sure that all the children we see at least twice by the dentist so we knew what was needed and then ensured that any work required was completed.

Thank you also to all our supporters who helped make this possible and all the dentists and Orthodontists that have helped put smiles on the children?s faces

Henna/Mehndi is a great pastime for young or old. All the girls love to dabble on themselves as they grow up, some being better at it than others. Amina spent a while putting this lovely design on one of the children's arms.

Mehndi is a form of body art and temporary skin decoration usually drawn on hands or legs, in which decorative designs are created on a person's body, using a paste, created from the powdered dry leaves of the henna plant (Lawsonia inermis).