Pupils join trip to India

Press, 8 October 1988, Page 6

Pupils join trip to India

Two Christchurch pupils are preparing for a trip to India, sharing the pleasant tasks — swotting history, watching videos and keeping fit and bearing the unpleasant — grimacing for passport photos and suffering the effects of a series of “shots.”

Miss Nadia Hanning from Rangi Ruru Girls’ College, and Miss Annabel Glasson, from St Margaret’s College, have been selected as South Island representatives on a project to aid India. Receiving medication to ward off a host of diseases — typhoid, hepatitis B, cholera, tetanus and polio — has given them a sense of what it means to live in a country which is far from healthy. “In Mew Zealand we worry about our homes, clothes and cars. We are basically more materialistic. In India I should think they place more value on being healthy,” said Miss Glasson. “I expect that they accept each

other more, that they are open and caring,” said Miss Hanning. The girls will form part of a 36strong group, Project Redirection which aims to give practical assistance to India.

The team, which consists of school and university students, has a multi-racial representation of Maori, pakeha, Tongan, Samoan, Fijian, Kiribatian, and Australian cultures.

They will leave on December 27 and return on January 24. During that time they will have travelled through the Asian Plateau, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, and Bangladesh.

They will have worked in a reafforestation programme in the village of Panchgani, been greeted by the Prime Minister of India, Mr Rajiv Gandhi and the New Zealand High Commissioner, Sir Edmund Hillary, and worked in a “village of homes” in New Delhi. They will vist a leper colony, a

home for people with psychological handicaps, a house for destitute children and a hospital for people suffering from tuberculosis. The project will culminate in a visit to Calcutta where the team will work with sister colleagues of Mother Teresa. School participation in the project has been initiated by the principal of St Cuthberts College in Auckland, Miss Joan Holland. “It was one of her last wishes before retirement,” said Miss Glasson. “It gives us an opportunity to learn about another culture and language and will hopefully help us develop our tolerance and understanding,” said Miss Hanning. The team members are responsible for their own expenses of $3500 and will be trying to raise money to take a gift to one of the community projects in India.