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Christine meets former president of India

Dr Christine Burnett was honoured to meet former Indian president Dr Abdul Kalam during a recent visit to Belfast. He visited Methodist College where he met with sixth-form pupils who had visited India with Christine and Ruth McKibbin. He spoke of his vision of India becoming a developed nation where all its citizens have escaped poverty. Dr Kalam was most interested in the work of Saphara and hopes to meet our teams when we are in Delhi.

Team Building Day

On Saturday 22 November, 32 sixth form students arrived at the NI-CO offices in Belfast with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. These young people had been chosen from over 100 applicants to take part in the Saphara teams to India next summer and this was the first opportunity to meet the rest of the team. The morning passed quickly with 'get to know you' games and an introduction to Indian culture. Over lunch we had a chance to taste Indian food and then work off the calories with Bollywood dancing - Mr Dominic Breen impressed us all by his dance moves!

The afternoon saw the Taj Mahal and other Wonders of the World being built out of straws and paper before we heard more about our summer trip and the children we would be working with in India. Hearing about the impact our visit would have on these children was really inspiring. Knowing that our fundraising will build a toilet block in the slum school and equip a hill village school with desks and chairs gave us real motivation for the challenge. New friendships and new motivation - a Saturday well spent!