Austrian volunteer Florian uses these bright clear winter days to help Vinod give the playground equipment a fresh coat of paint.

Sajhe Sapne team from Aavishkar NGO visited Nishtha to talk about their one year residential course. Their program develops the girls potential and ensures them work opportunities as educators, social workers or IT operators. 14 of the girls sponsored by Nishtha to go to college, attended this workshop in which they discussed the meanings of career and Job. The girls talked about the objective of their academic courses and what their studies will enable them to do in the future. It was a very thought provoking and interesting meeting. Thank you to the Sajhe Sapne team!

We are pleased to have been able to respond to the needs of the villagers by fitting a much larger water filtration system so that sufficient clean water is available for all the families living in the area.

Bright blue but chilly November days are perfect for getting the cycles out on the ground. The children are thrilled and very happy to learn how to ride properly.

Using the skills they learned during their recent training at Shaishav in Gujart Vijay and Ravindra held a 2 day adolescent empowerment and safety training with 15 boys from classes 4, 5 & 6 from the local government schools. They introduced the meaning of sexual harassment, sexual assault and sexual exploitation of children. They discussed violence that happens to children in school, home, playgrounds, buses and public places and what provisions the government has made to protect children in our country. We talked about how to set boundaries and to say “No”. They know now how to make safe decisions and to ask for help and make healthy friendships.
It was challenging for the trainers who needed to switch activities frequently to retain the interest of the boys who had huge amounts of energy! However, they did retain much of what was covered and had a very good time!

After the Diwali break the children are back at school and are enthusiastically joining our after school program. Two of our students, Shalini and Kanishka are leading tuition for those who need help with their school work. They also guide and encourage reading, creative activities and plenty of sports now the weather is fine.

Winter is coming and the seeds for next spring have to be sown now so we are re-making the greenhouse. We lifted the frame and situated it in a more sunny place, used green screen netting to protect the lower four feet while allowing for ventilation and have re-covered the whole with plastic sheeting which can be let down to conserve heat at night and in the coldest weeks. We are looking forward to lots of fresh salad this year!

Yes, its that time of year again when everybody happily gets down to cleaning, repairing and painting the Clinic and Community Centre in preparation for the festival of Diwali which this year falls on October 25th.

To celebrate the festival of Dussehra, Rakkar Social and Environment Club, supported by the village Panchayat were delighted to present a short version of the traditional Ramayana story on Rakkar playground. A group of Nishtha students sang a traditional song to introduce the program and then the children who had practiced hard for the past week put on a really great performance to the delight of the gathered crowd.