I thought you'd enjoy knowing a little bit about our projects that the coordinators have guided our volunteers in this summer. There have been several smaller ones that were not for the full summer, but there have been some that have followed through the last three months. We have had close to 100 volunteers who have spent up to four weeks with us. The volunteer program is under the direction of Amy Antonelli, and she was here for part of the time in early August. She had invited 5 very talented and dedicated women to run the program for the summer--she trained and taught them, and they came in May prepared to handle anything and everything! In the next few blogs, I will share with you their portions of the program and tell you a bit about these great leaders.
Kaity Gale is from Seattle, Washington. She will be a senior in Anthropology this fall at BYU. Next year she plans to start a Masters program in Public Health. The first week in October she will marry Peter... Kaity's program was unique, as she designed her own program and presented it to Amy a year ago. She was a volunteer herself in August of 2008, and after working with the people in the colonies, felt it would be a great thing to set up interviewing and story gathering in the colonies, with translators to assist with the language barrier. Her goal for the summer was to get the stories of these people, whose lives have been so different; they have been shunned and removed from the mainstream of Indian life. Within 20 years, the colonies may be a thing of the past, as leprosy is on the decline with proper medical help more available to prevent the horrible disfiguring which so easily identifies them as leprosy affected. The curse of leprosy hopefully will be gone, just as it has disappeared from the island of Molokai in Hawaii.
Kaity's work had the approval of Padma Venkataraman, who laid the groundwork for Kaity in the colonies. Kaity was amazed at how quickly the residents in the colonies accepted her, and with her the stream of volunteers who accompanied her and visited with the people. She opened doors with games (Jenga and Badmitton were two particular favorites), picking up garbage, singing songs and dancing, and just laughing and having fun. Her most joyful experience was getting to know the individuals so closely, and making so many good friends. She loved hearing their stories--some happy and content with life, even with all their problems, many so unhappy with the struggles they've been faced with. Her project was one of building trust--with the people of the colonies, and with Padma as her project developed. Padma was not sure how the people would accept so many coming to ask questions.
Kaity plans to compile her material (she has over 150 single spaced pages) into a book with individual stories or as a history of the colonies. A portion of the material will be used for her senior thesis and academic articles. As she has spent her time with these people her own knowledge of the Tamil language has increased greatly. There were also several wonderful translators helping, including Esther and Rhadika who are both here at Rising Star from the US and speak Tamil. We had several darling young men from Chennai, who spent a good portion of their summer back and forth on the train to be with Kaity and her group. The volunteers loved going out with her, and many were exceptionally good at the interviewing and making friends. Our smallest grandsons who were here in July, Jack and Match Hanson, were really loved by the people--and they in turn loved the experience. There were several of the residents who wanted to adopt them into the colony!
This program provided a unique opportunity for our volunteers this year. It will not be repeated next year, but something else will be available to give the volunteers a wonderful experience with the colony people. We feel so lucky that Kaity was able to be here with us, and with her training lead this outstanding endeavor. She has been incredible.
Pictures: Padma and Kaity (note picture of Padma's Dad behind); Sammy Stapley (volunteer), Raja (translator) and one of the residents; a game of jenga with Paramasivan; beautiful Kaity; Esther dancing with Maria. With the exception of the first picture of Padma and Kaity, all photos by Mark Olson and family.
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