Tinley's Aid

I’m entering my last week in Sikkim! I’m really going to miss working with the children and seeing their smiling faces every day…as cliche as that sounds. It’s astounding how much they appreciate the smallest things. On Saturday, I gave out the clothing that I collected and they were absolutely thrilled! THANK YOU to everybody was so generous with this clothing.

I also had another great meeting with Ms Kyippu, the founder of Lepcha Cottage, and she showed me some of the specific places where she’d like to install tiles for sanitation and shelves for organization. We also discussed a new project: The Kancha Fund. Kancha is a term of endearment meaning “youngest brother” in the Sikkimese language, and I am establishing it for this severely disabled boy I have mentioned frequently. He is unable to walk or speak, and has extremely limited use of his arms. I look forward to publishing more details about The Kancha Fund in the future on my website.

Love,

Tinley

Hi all,

Sikkim is great so far. Yesterday I met with the orphanage director to discuss what I should put donation money towards and she had a couple areas that she said she’d really like to allocate it:

1) Building shelves in the dormitories to store children’s personal items

2)Putting tiles in the dining room and kitchen which currently have a dirt floor.

3) Buying de-worming medication for the children.

Also, she mentioned that her main source of aid has decided that they will provide for a capacity of 60 students, and there are a total of 111 children at the home! She is paying for the rest of these children’s food and deworming out of her own pension!

I am also looking to allocate a portion of the money for setting up a fund for the disabled boy I previously mentioned - more details on this later!

Tinley

Hello everyone!

I arrived in Sikkim 10 days ago, and have so far been working at the Lepcha Cottage for almost a week. The weather is generally nice, with the exception of a huge storm we had the other night! It took me a while to recover from jetlag, but my wish to start working at the school forced me to get used to the time zone pretty quickly!

The children are in very good spirits, especially because their school will go on vacation soon! I have been working with a group of about 25 ranging from 3-7 years old at the cottage every afternoon, teaching alphabets, sentences, colours, numbers, and shapes. The exercises vary depending on their skill level.

I am particularly concerned about some of the children that have developed horrible rashes and have open sores all over them. I have spoken to the director of the cottage and we decided that I will buy some ointments for them, if not to heal, then at least to reduce the pain and itching.

One child in particular has caught my attention - he is suffering from a mental impairment and he is unable to communicate properly. It also seems that he cannot control many parts of his body as he is unable to walk upright and is constantly drooling. I am planning on arranging a meeting with the director to see if there is something I can do for him - at the very least, purchase something that will help him to move around. Currently, he pushes a small plastic chair like a walker.

I would like to thank everybody who so generously donated, so I will be able to remedy these problems within the orphanage! Clothing donations have also proven to be incredibly valuable - many of the children are wearing dirty clothing with holes and missing buttons. This only seems to make the rash problems worse.

Love,

Tinley

Hi all!

If you’ve arrived here, you have probably been directed from my website http://web.me.com/tinleymelvin/Tinleys_Aid/ … if not, I definitely recommend you check it out and then come back to this blog!

Because I created my site using the iWeb program, it is not possible to update the blog on there from India. Thus, I decided to use tumblr to create a blog I can post on while I am in Sikkim!

I leave tomorrow evening - so stay tuned for news and travel updates coming soon!

Love,

Tinley