DISCOVER YOUR POTENTIAL II

Discover Your Potential II is all over.  The 51 participants from Canada and the UK had an awesome time - according to them as well as me!  It was an incredibly busy and hectic time as we conducted 5 community projects while they were here.  There's a short video about each project on our YouTube site and here's the links in case you would like to check them out...

http://youtu.be/3LYlXcJo9oc

http://youtu.be/sAu-RXdS8qM

http://youtu.be/Ar5TSItxQUo

http://youtu.be/3u2YZ89Mw8o

http://youtu.be/kXIirasLluA

I've got a few days off now so looking forward to chilling a little!  Here's a pic of the 51 pax and the staff at the welcome ceremony because the blog looked a bit boring without a pic! :)

CYCLE

I had my very cool push bike stolen today from outside Kamini's place!  I left it for 5 mins and it was 5 mins too long!!!  If you're a Pune friend please be on the look out for it!!! :(

Discover Your Potential

Discover Your Potential finished yesterday (after 10 days).  We had 32 participants from the USA, Denmark and India.  The group was heaps of fun and really got into the event.  We had three community action projects during the event.  Participants went to Deep Griha, Green Tara Foundation and Maher for four days to work with the women and children at the various organisations.  Mina, Aarti and I went to visit all three organisations one day and here's a clip from our visits...
http://youtu.be/Saj7QLpi0gE 
...we also saw an elephant - cool!!!

Just 5 days before the next event starts and we have 51 participants coming from the UK and Canada.  They will be doing 5 community projects.  Will get two days off before the next event starts and totally looking forward to that!!!

 

Volunteers in Training

Sayali and Aarti started as Volunteers in Training with us yesterday.  We had Welcome Ceremony last night for our Discover Your Potential event.  We have 23 participants here from Denmark, USA and India.  Fun so far!!!

Village Visit Clip

Check out the clip Gwen made of the village visit last week...

http://youtu.be/sD-5vJtDejc

ESSENCE OF INDIA III

First event of the season was great.  23 participants from USA and Canada + a group from the USA living in Japan.  The youngest participant was 11 and the oldest 50+ so lots of fun!!!

Most awesome part of the event (according to me) was the visit to Aditi learning centre and to the homes of the girls from Aditi.  The learning centre is about an hour and a half from Pune and on the way we checked out this HUGE Ganesh statue!

Also, saw interesting wildlife!!!

The girls were so gracious in welcoming us to their homes and introducing us to their families and their way of life!

Rice paddies were very cool!!!  Hope to go back there in another event later in the season.  Now getting ready for our Discover Your Potential Event that starts on Sunday with 33 participants.

ELEPHANT HUNTING

Had a couple of days off between the Volunteer Training and the first event of the season and Kamini and I went 'elephant hunting'!  We didn't see any elephants but we went to this awesome park with a very cool view.  Monsoon rain makes everything sooo green!!!

We had a great picnic...

We found the place where the elephants hang out (at a different time of the day) and there's this huge statue that shows might and religion working together - interesting!!!

TheY sold great roasTed corn at the side of the road!