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Project Dovetail is in Mauritius! It is hard to believe that a country this beautiful could have such poverty.
Our first day in Mauritius - first stop - SOS Beau Bassin, to see the children's village we have been working to help for almost two years, and hopefully to meet some of the children (its a school day).
The first thing we noticed when arriving at SOS Beau Bassin, is the feeling of warmth that the children's village lets out. The gardens of the village are dotted with coloured tropical flowers and the sounds of children laughing from the attached kindergarden.
We are introduced to Linda - the village social worker. She is amazing, has a love for all of the children in the village and has worked here for the past 17 years so has seen many of the children grow from babies to adults, achieve their dreams and has even watched some of the ex-village children become married! Linda took us on a tour of the village and told us about the village, the values they have and the wonderful children who call it home.
SOS Beau Bassin, has 97 children who have come to the village from different backgrounds and circumstances. Some have been abandoned at birth, some of been placed into the village by the Department of Social Services as a result of neglect, abuse and as a result of unfit parenting. Once the children come into the village they are placed into one of the village 'houses'. These are small town house style apartments, that circle the village and are joined by a communal hall, playground and garden. Each 'house' has a carer who looks after 6 or 7 children of different ages and genders who live together as if they are brothers and sisters. They are bought up in a family environment and are all expected to contribute to the household by doing chores and helping one another just as if they were living in an outside family with their biological family. This means that once the children reach adulthood they have the skills to look run a house hold and look after their own families. The houses are speckled with the children's artwork on the walls, school books and the house mothers are busy preparing the evening meal. They are all so proud to show us around the house they care for and speak about the children they care for. We also meet the village pet - a giant Tourtose named Gertrude!
We were lucky enough to meet a few of the children as they have had some time off their regular school timetable for study days ready for the upcoming school exams (which start in grade 6!)
Linda then took us next door to the Kindergarden. This is owned and run by SOS Beau Bassin, and is open to the public as the local Kindergarden. This is how SOS Beau Bassin raises its main revenue, in which to fund the upkeep of the village and the children who reside there. The Kindergarden schools 134 local 5 year olds and they are so adorable!
When we go into the class rooms to say hello, they rush over to us and are more than happy to pose for the camera! There are four children in the kindergarden who live in the Children's Village, and we meet them all - cant wait to see them again for the party!
A couple of hours later, we are on our way to Port Louis to the warehouse district to visit the stores and finish purchasing the items for the children's essential packs and things for the big party. We are trying to purchase as much as we can from the locally ran stores to help support the community. Our best find - a tiny, tiny shop that somehow managed to fit in hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of pyjamas in! They are all made in the store by local women and then sold in the shop front. Every cm of the shop is utilised and has stacked up pairs of pyjamas in - almost to the fact that we can hardly fit inside! Fourty pairs of pyjamas are ordered, packed up and purchased - and the generous pyjamas shop discounted the already cheap process as we were purchasing for SOS Beau Basin.
Next stop - art and craft supplies from the art shop. We loaded up on stacks of scrap books, rems of paper, packets of pencils, crayons, bottles of paint, paint brushes, activity books, crayons and a big rolls of coloured paper and cardboard. More than enough art and craft goodies for the kids to have hours of fun!
The rest of the week is spent shopping to finish off finding everything on our list (thongs, t-shirts, shorts, toys, batteries for the toys - and heaps of spares) and before long our hotel room is looking more like a store room! We decide to buy some books to contribute to the SOS Beau Bassin library, which has a small outdated range of books that the children can borrow for reading and study. We first went into an English bookshop and bought a selection of fairytales and easy reading books for the kids to practise their English which is part of the school cirriculim, Our next store is a huge french bookshop - we had to guess from the pictures to what the story was about! (hopefully we got it right!) Found the Goosebump book series in french which was funny as I remember loving them when I was at primary school! We bought these and a selection of other novels that we thought the kids would love - 68 in all! We topped it off with the 2011 Guiness Books of Records!
Now all that is left to do is to present the children with their essential packs and the shared supplies for the village at the big party - cant wait! Saturday Hurry Up!!
KIDS PARTY DAY!
8.00AM
We arrived at SOS Beau Bassin at 8.00am, and were met by a group of the senior kids that Linda had selected to help us set up. Their first job - hauling the bags (and bags, and bags!) up the two flights of stairs to the hall!
We started by blowing up the balloons with the help of the kids and decorated by hanging the coloured paper chains we had made (we couldn't find any decorations at the shops so we bought some coloured paper and made our own multi coloured paper chains)
The games, art and craft supplies and books were set up on the stage so that everyone could see what we were presenting to the Children's Village, ready for the school holiday program, and for the library.
10.00AM - The Junior Party Begins!
All of the children aged ten and under were invited to the morning party, which
Linda introduced us to the children, and with her help translating, I welcomed everyone, explained the fun things they would be able to participate in throughout the day, got them to jump around and catch bubbles from the bubble machine and introduced them to an Australian Icon - a (toy) Koala (the 'clip' on kind!)
We had bought over enough clip on koalas for everyone and were lucky enough to have a good helper - seven year old Daniel (Koalas are his favourite animal and has a special cuddly toy of one)
With smiles on their faces, and clip on koalas on their t-shirts, everyone sat up to the table to draw us pictures that we could take back to Australia.
When they finished their pictures everyone had their faces painted and soon we had spiderman, butterflies and princess's running around the room ready to receive the parcels we had bought for them. Each of the children were given an outfit, a pair of pyjamas, shoes, socks, underwear, a toothbrush and a toy, which had been brought for each particular child and sponsored by donors and businesses in Australia. It was amazing to see the looks on their faces as they received their presents and everyone posed for photos to show off their faces and painted faces.
The clown arrived to play games and entertain the children with his jokes, dancing - and sound effects! Everyone had a turn at playing musical hats and chairs.
12.00PM - Lunch time!
Everyone from the village came to the hall for a shared lunch that we had bought in from a local restraint - fried rice, chicken and fresh baguettes.
The children set the tables ready for lunch and their house mothers served the meals and made sure everyone had enough to eat. there was so much food that after everyone had finished eating there was enough food for dinner as well! So much food!
After lunch we presented Linda with a pledge for camp - and told the children that Project Dovetail had sponsored them all to go to summer camp. Everyone cheered as they heard that on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of December they would all be travelling to the beach for three days of fun, activities and being spoilt! Yay for camp!
2.00PM - Senior Kids Party
When lunch was finished and cleared, the younger children returned to their 'houses' and the senior kids were invited to attend their Project Dovetail party.
The children aged eleven and over had been waiting in anticipation for their party as they had heard all about the fun the younger children had in the morning. The face painting table was once again popular with all of the kids wanting ot have their faces painted and temporary tattoos applied.
The clown hosted the afternoon, welcoming the children to the stage to perform the dances they had prepared for us to watch, and organised some games.
As A surprise (I think for her as well!) one of the girls - 17 year old Winneleen gave us a solo performance of 'Redemption Song' by Bob Marley. Amazing voice and amazing dances! Thank goodness we were not asked to perform for them in return - I guess we would have provided a comedy routine!
After the show we presented the children with their gift packages and the boys who received the remote control cars were itching to get them out of their boxes and start racing one and other! Ella found heaps of new friends and enjoyed showing off to their applause and attention - and asked all of them to come home and play with her some more!
4.00 - Cuddles, photos and a promise to return
We interviewed Linda to add to the video we had been filming throughout the day, to hear her speak about the work of SOS Beau Bassin does and the amazing children that live there, and the things they have achieved doe to these opportunities.
Before it was time for us to leave, we said good bye to all of the children and watched them play soccer with their new ball and the remote control car races that were taking place.
With cuddles, photos with everyone and a promise to return, we left SOS Beau Bassin, happy that we had been invited to the children's village and given the opportunity to meet such a wonderful and wonderful bunch of kids and hoping that it wouldn't be long before we could return.
This is the beginning, not the end!
*This is the Blog of Danielle Larche of her Project Mauritius experience
Announcing to
the children that we are sending them to camp!
Drawings from the children of SOS Beau Bassin
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