Final Report from JSS Building Project in West Bengal, 7/2/’08
Flying over the snowy wastes of Turkestan, heading home after 26 days labouring in the Indian spring-time gives time to reflect on the success of this our sixth JSS School Building Project. In many ways this has been the most successful of all. There are six reasons for this:
(1) We built team work into the project from the start last September. Despite some initial resistance from students they have enjoyed the novelty and challenge of the four team approach to class-work, behaviour and finally school building.
(2) The weather has been unseasonably cool which has helped maintain health and work rate.
(3) There was particularly good camaraderie between the adults accompanying and inspiring the students. We had two excellent leaders from Scouting Ireland, Noel and Stephen, who worked tirelessly to motivate and sustain. We were joined by two other young men, Daniel and Joseph, who added greatly to the youthful spirit of the adult crew.
(4) The students are a cohesive band of young people, willing and obedient and happy to take example and learn. There was no shirking or complaining.
(5) From the start we had good simple food which was both palatable and digestible. The whole group were very accepting of most of the local foods offered to us.
(6) Our experience is growing from year to year. Our understanding of the pitfalls involved in moving a large number of people from place to place in unfamiliar surroundings is much greater now than in the early years. This year we ventured further and into remoter areas than ever. The only year when we travelled nearly as far was 2005 when we went upstate to Pannighatta and Darjeeling and that was a punishing experience. This year we travelled over 2000 kilometres by bus, train, jeep and rickshaw into the deep south and extreme west without too much strain.
John Alexander. 8/2/’08
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