Some Introductions

Hello! So in this first entry I thought it might be helpful for me to start with some introductions in order to set the scene for my Project Trust adventure. So, my name is Elena, I’m 18 years old and from the Cotswolds in the south of England. I’ve just finished my A levels in English, History and Geography and, on the 4^th of September, will be flying off to become a teacher in India.

Ever since I was small, I’d been hearing stories about Project Trust. In 1979, they sent my Dad to a social care project in Salt, Jordan so around our house there were photos of the school he worked at and from the travels he went on. As well as this my brother and I were brought up on all sorts of amazing stories from his time out there so, as you’d imagine, I was applying to get onto a PT selection course as soon as I was old enough. Luckily, they seemed to think my application was up to standard and invited me to a Selection course on the Isle of Coll that took place in July last year (2014). This was one of the best weeks of my life- the Island was beautiful, the staff were friendly, (as was my host) and most importantly I made some wonderful friends there. Among a number of team building activities, we each had to teach a couple of 10 minute lessons to test out teaching abilities. While I was worried that I had messed up them up, the Project Trust staff must have seen some potential in me as a few weeks later I got a letter telling me I had been selected and it was time to start fundraising! 

My lovely Selection group as we left Coll

This fundraising took shape in the form of decoration and card making, babysitting, concerts and most importantly an awful lot of letter writing! This whole process went fairly smoothly thanks to the constant support of my family and friends when it came to baking for cake sales, collecting lists of charitable trusts and sewing up little Christmas tree decorations (and much more). I managed to reach my target a couple of months ago- far sooner than I’d expected! It was in May that I received a letter from PT giving me the details of my project. All I knew was that I would be a TESOL teacher at Devnar Foundation for the Blind in Hyderabad (the biggest blind school in India).  

It wasn’t until training last week that I started to learn about my project in more depth. I will be teaching several classes of different age groups ranging between 1^st and 9^th Class as well supervising study classes in the evening and organising plays for school events and things. As my partner and I will be living inside the school itself, our project also has a large social care aspect meaning we will also spend a lot of time in the mornings and evening chatting and playing with the students. As well as all this I also have a fair bit of traveling time to explore India and hopefully visit some amazing places.

The idea is to keep this updated as often as I can throughout the year and will hopefully have a post about my training week up very soon! (I hope this was okay as a first introductory post- I promise I will try to improve!) 

Elena x