Author: Emma Bowyer

Good evening,

405 miles seems a significant number – over a quarter of the way there!

Today I wanted to again say thankyou for all your messages both for me and the children! There are still 20 days to go so plenty of time to send them in.

Encouraging news today from Madurai. These are words from Jim:

Below Jim tells us about the weekly activity set by Vidiyal for the younger children in the various communities. There has been no schooling for this age group since the first outbreak and the Vidiyal team has been working hard to keep the children motivated and learning.

Last week we had storytelling sessions for children as a daily activity for the children belonging to beginner and primary age groups. Our volunteers collected children in small groups and told them a story divided into six episodes. Each episode ends with a suspense knot which kindled the interest in children to come for the next day’s session. Children who couldn’t come for the session because of various reasons were reached through mobile phones. I am enclosing photos for you.

This only works because of the dedication of the volunteers who have been supervising activities for the children in their communities during the lockdown. (The volunteers are older Vidiyal youngsters, now at college, who want to give back to Vidiyal by working with the children in their spare time.)

Another hard day of cycling but very encouraging news from Madurai where they have been moved out of the ‘Red Zone’ this means that some of the daily wage earners will be able to return to work. It also means that the team can plan to resume distributing the relief kits.

Tomorrow we shall arrive in Wales! A landmark day/

My adjudicator is already thinking about when we finish on June 29th and how we should mark the occasion – I admire her faith! It still feels a very long way off.

Today has been tough. Blisters havent helped but we made it.

I can only say thankyou to all of you who have sent in messages for the children, encouragement for me and contributions to our total.