St Joan of Arc

Welcome_live

Welcome to the website for the Udayan project at St Joan of Arc School.

Since March 2004, St Joan of Arc have held many fund raising events with the aim of supporting Udayan, and of spreading awareness in the local community about the work it carries out for the children of leprosy sufferers in Calcutta, India.

In February 2005 a group of Sixth Formers from St Joan’s, along with two members of staff, travelled to Calcutta to visit Udayan and to offer their services to the home. Following the success of the first trip visit, another was made two years later. On both occasions the itineraries incorporated religious places of significance to the major Faiths in India, and the journeys which took on something of the nature of a pilgrimage were recorded on a daily basis. These diaries are available on this website in the archive section.

A fourth group, this time of seven sixth formers (past and present), will be going out to India along with two members of staff in February 2011. They will be following the same route as the previous groups only beginning further north at Amritsar in order to see the Sikh Golden Temple. Again a diary will be kept of the pilgrimage whilst there in India with daily postings including photographs. Readers will have the option and are encouraged to post messages each day.

We hope you will find time to explore the site, read about Udayan and the fantastic work it does and all that is going on at St Joan’s for the children of Udayan. Please have a look at the photos from our recent events and catch up on the latest news. Further information about Udayan and fundraising activities involving Friends of Udayan in the UK can be found on the Friends of Udayan website www.friendsofudayan.co.uk. Feel free to let others know the site is here so that they too can find out about Udayan and hopefully begin to support it.

If you have any questions, check out our info page or send us an e-mail.

The Udayan Group

Latest News:

Friends of Udayan Newsletter 2011

25 December 2011 | Read full article and comments

A copy of the Friends of Udayan newsletter written by Caroline Weldon, UK Co-ordinator, updating friends of progress and activities throughout the year.
Click here to download a copy : Friends of Udayan Newsletter 2011.pdf

A video of Udayan

1 May 2011 | Read full article and comments

Returning from India at the end of February 2011, the students (past and present) from St Joan’s have created a video of their time spent with the children at Udayan for our readers to enjoy.

Mrs Schramm Returns to Udayan

14 September 2010 | Read full article and comments

Mrs Schramm returned to Udayan this summer in order to further develop the teaching of English. She was delighted with the progress that had been made but aware there is a long way yet to go.

Latest entries from the India 2011 Diary:

Arrival back in the UK

24 February 2011 | Read full article and comments

Hi All,

We are pleased to inform our readers of the India2011 diary that the group arrived back into London Heathrow to be greated by family and friends just before 7am this morning after a journey in which we left Kolkata at 6pm yesterday evening (12.30pm GMT).

Good night from India

23 February 2011 | Read full article and comments

So now we finally conclude our amazing two and half weeks in India. We have had a fantastic time and each and every one of us will be coming back with hundreds of memories which we can’t wait to tell all of you. From the beautiful Golden Temple in Amritsar to the very special times we shared with children at Udayan and Asha Bhavan. Today in Kolkata we were treated not only to a lie in, but then a very relaxed day to take in as much as possible of this breathtaking place, not to mention a spot of last minute shopping in the local markets. Now we are waiting to leave for our flights home and are very much looking forward to seeing all of our loved ones.

3 Days at Udayan!!!!

22 February 2011 | Read full article and comments

Our last three days have been spent at Udayan and we have had the most amazing time! We have played football, cricket, hopscotch and hand games with the children. They have taught us some Bengali and Hindi while we have concentrated on reaffirming Beverley’s spoken English programme by talking to the children and assisting in their different classes.