And we jumped!

On Sunday the 25th of March, we did the unspeakable!
We jumped out of an airplane, the whole process is called parachute jumping of course!

Atousa Goudarzi managed to raise £445 for War child [reg.charity no. 1071659 reg.co.no. 3610100 (UK) ]. War child looks after children in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. So far they are the only organization which has been active in south of Iraq.

Harjeet Shakira jumped for child line [Registered charity number 216401]. ChildLine is the UK's free, 24-hour helpline for children in distress or danger. Last year ChildLine counselled almost 140,000 children and young people.

We hope that the money we raised for these charities helps them in the great work they are doing.

One thing which came out of these parachute jumps was the question Harj asked me (Atousa) when we were on our way to the parachute centre.
she asked me if i was afraid of dying on that date, I looked at her and we both said "I am not" at the same time.

Now this can be interpreted in 2 ways:

1) we are %100 happy with what we have achieved in our lives and there is noting more we desire!
2) we are two brave adventurous women who are not afraid to die in a new adventure!

hmm which one do you think it is??

Adios for now!

Get yourself some popcorn!

As was mentioned before, BBC Coventry and Warwickshire provided us with a camera to document our journey.

The 3 minutes documentaries were uploaded today. There was no red carpet involved to our disappointments!!!!!

In order to see the Science school documentary please click here.

and to see the domestic violence documentary Please click here.
and go to Watch the Vidoe.

I would like to thank Fay at BBC Coventry and Warwichshire for all she has done for us.

Memoirs of the two musketeers ...

In order to see more memorable pictures, here is the link:

www.flickr.com

Conclusion!

We felt we made a difference, however small, we felt welcomed and valued and will probably never forget the spark in the eyes of those young children and their desire to learn. we left feeling positive and satisfied that women were brave enough to question and open minded enough to listen to new points of views and different approaches. given the opportunity we would stay in deprived areas such as the one's we visited and do this work for longer. (provided we got Vegetable Biriyani everyday).

Their way of saying "thanks"...

I (Atousa) thought of a good way for recycling my birthday and Christmas cards. I took them to India with me in order to have a craft session with the children at the end of the science lessons. I explained to them that the educational material we have been working with were provided by the National Space Centre in Leicester.
I suggested that we all sit down together and in order to say thank you to the National Space Centre, we make them Thank you cards.
They were all so creative and passionate about it, and made wonderful cards which you can see some of them in the above picture.

FROM AMRITSAR TO DELHI!

After a eight hour journey on the Sachkand Express surrounded with wildlife i.e. mice!!!!!!! we arrived in one piece in Delhi. After being spoilt by Uncle and his colleagues in Amritsar, we found it difficult to cope on our own. However we managed to find our own accommodation in Karol Bhag,which was heaven for shopping, but unfortunately an hour away from schools and women's centre's, but is was all worthwhile because we managed to experience the joys of a freezing to death in the early hours of the morning on Delhi's public transport system.

Having gained more confidence from our work in Amritsar we managed to get more work done in Delhi and kept to a very busy schedule. The two places we visited, Amritsar and Delhi both had children who were eager and excited to learn, they participated, learnt and enjoyed the lessons and discussions very much to such an extent that they kept asking if we were coming back to them the next day.

The women's organization was a lot more active in Delhi, they worked to fight gender discrimination, and tackled problems such child abuse and domestic violence more openly then it was tackled in Amritsar. They held regular support groups and taught self defence one form of empowerment.

Golden Amritsar

after a 16 hour traumatic journey from Delhi Airport to Amritsar we greeted by very hospitable people. Our accommodation was provided for at the cost of 75 pence per night! and transport to and from the project bases was also provided by a friendly gentleman who became known as the 'uncle'. The week was split into two parts with Atousa doing her work in the mornings and Harj doing her work in the afternoons.

Atousa divided her teaching into two parts, with the first session covering the planets, the solar system and how the planets rotate around the sun, using educational materials and models, some of which were provided by the National Space Centre. The second included the discovery of space by man and model building exercises such as launching rockets. these two sessions took place over two separate days.

These sessions worked very well for the children as typically teaching styles for them until then had been purely theoretical rather interactive.

Harj gained access to women through the projects empowerment programme, which involved computer and sewing classes for women to learn skills so they do not have to rely on others to survive. The sessions included discussion around domestic violence and legislation. A lot of time was spent exploring the issues and raising awareness via the use of case studies which were prepared by Harj prior to the journey. we were surprised and overwhelmed
at discovering these women were quite aware of domestic violence and even what sort of help was available for them.