St Anthony’s children continue to be faithful Friends of Udayan and followed up their generous donation made in May of £175 with an amazing £350.
Caroline Weldon and Chris Mann gave a presentation to the Corporate Social Responsibility group under the management of Anne-Marie Kesselman. Those present listened with growing interest and assurances of future support were made, with a donation for £100 made within days. Subsequently Kerry Fraser, the Events Manager, sent a further sum of £195.
On Tuesday 20th March 2007, Mrs Weldon, Chris Mann and Neal O’Shea were invited to a meeting of the Pinner Rotary Club at Pinner Golf Course. The Rotarians warmly welcomed the group and were very generous with their hospitality. After enjoying a superb dinner Mrs Weldon gave a 20 minute talk on Udayan describing how it was begun 37 years ago by the Rev. James Stevens, what it has grown to today and why it is necessary. There was a high level of interested shown and many present were visibly moved by what they were hearing of the plight of leprosy sufferers and their children. Pledges of help were offered.
These enchanting pictures painted by some of the children of Udayan and reproduced on good quality card cannot fail to delight.
Sold in aid of Udayan, a home for the children of leprosy sufferers in Barrackpore, India, through: *Dominique Lapierre City of Joy Aid, England Registered Charity No: 1080812*
There are three cards available:
Message reads: Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Left blank for your own message.
Message reads: Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
If you would like to purchase some cards, please print out an order form and send, along with a cheque to be written out to ‘Friends of Udayan’, to St Joan of Arc School (attention Mrs C.S. Weldon), High Street, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire WD3 1HG. Pricing information and postage costs are on the order form. Alternatively, please send us an e-mail.
St Joan of Arc rocked on Saturday night as a group of sixth formers and ex-students put on Light Music an’ Eats 2, an evening’s entertainment in aid of the school charity Udayan, a home in Calcutta for the children of leprosy sufferers.
Some of the musicians had visited the home last year, among them James Dodds of Malvern Way Croxley Green and Chris Ridley of Highfield Way Rickmansworth. The mastermind behind the whole event was Grace Stacey of Blacketts Wood Drive, currently in the upper sixth and one of the party heading out to India in February to spend time at Udayan helping with the children and strengthening the bond.
St Joan’s has been associated with Udayan since March 2004. Since then the students have raised many thousands of pounds, with Saturday night alone generating just over £3,000.
Udayan, a home, school and hospital, is run on donated funds by an Englishman who started it 36 years ago at the suggestion of Mother Teresa.
Headmaster Peter Sweeney says: “We are immensely proud of these students, past and present, who somehow managed to meet up during the summer holidays to put together this superb programme of music. Their commitment to Udayan is quite remarkable. The evening was well supported and an immense success. In certain parts of the world there is still a stigma associated with leprosy and, but for the home, Udayan’s children would be living in desperate conditions.”
Pictures are available of the event. Click here to view them.
St Joan’s recently sent 8 computers to Udayan to be used in developing the ICT skills of the older children. The consignment was flown to Calcutta free of charge by the generosity of Bernard Lavery through his company Clover Shipping. This is the second occasion he has transported gifts to Udayan gratis. The consignment contained in addition to the computers, monitors and printers, 112 golf clubs together with a vast number of balls all kindly donated by members of the RAC Golf Club in Epsom.
On October 29, armed with a laptop, extensive notes and a carefully planned talk, the 4 representatives of the Udayan trip at St Joan of Arc, along with Mrs Weldon travelled to Hendon Police Academy, where we gave a talk on India, leprosy and Udayan to ‘Blue Intake’.
The purpose of the talk, which was given to 150 police students, was to make them aware of the plight of the children who live in the slums in Kolkata so that they would choose to support Udayan as their charity. Apart from a few teething technical problems at the start, the talk went very well, and included facts about leprosy, clips of fund raising events and a reading from ‘City of Joy’. All of the police recruits seemed very enthusiastic, and we have great hopes that they will raise lots of funds for the children of Udayan!
The Udayan Hootenanny turned out to be an absolutely fantastic evening. The band were superb and themselves commented how eager people were to get up and dance. Many thanks to all who helped make the evening run so smoothly. Thank you also to all of those who came and made it such a success – without your help we would never have raised the stunning figure of £1000.
James met a number of supporters of Udayan at Friends Provident in Dorking yesterday evening and was interviewed on the stage by author / biographer Kathryn Spink, the UK trustee of his charity.
The evening opened with some delightful Indian dancing by Masti, followed by a slide presentation of Udayan created by some of the St Joan of Arc Sixth Formers who are visiting the home in Calcutta next year. James then spoke eloquently and from the heart, and with gentle encouragement from Kathryn, gave a fascinating account of how Udayan came into being, and how it has developed over the past thirty years. Everyone listened intently, and a number of interesting questions were asked.
The evening ended with the presentation of a cheque for £15,000 raised by the Friends of Udayan. James said that this was a significant contribution towards the building of his new medical unit, and he was very obviously deeply moved. He returns, with his wife Lallita, to India in two weeks.