Our first outing to Dalston… as the dust settles… what can we say? Wow. Thanks to all you leg shakers out there, we raised a recordbreaking £480 towards the programmes in India!

Time to roll out the thank yous… here goes…

The Passing Clouds crew, what could we have done without you? Thanks for opening up your exquisite venue to D2E for one very memorable night. Our amazing performers, Ben Dalby, Sarah Bear (both D2E regulars), legend-in-his-own-lifetime Babar Luck, Daisy Kelly-Granger and Luke, Bonsai Big Band and crowd favourite Sound of Rum. Our electrifying DJs Len Hovis, Suniti and Dylan, plus the Return of the Quack on Visuals! Andy for celebrating his birthday with us…. Jamila for bringing the Banana Leaf Café back to life…..and of course our amazing volunteers and helpers. Spirits are high.

So high, in fact, that we’re going to do it again soon. Watch this space as we set the wheels in motion to return to the Chapel in SE London on the 9th May.

All donations went directly to India to support ongoing programmes run by our team of Peer and Street Educators to meet Basic Needs for vulnerable children and adults living on the streets of Hyderabad, India. As well as regular rapport building with these groups, twice-monthly basic needs provision camps are held on the field areas close to the railway platforms to provide services such as nutritious food, washing facilities, free cloth bank, medical checks, haircuts, counselling and referral to shelters or permanent hostels.

However, it doesn’t stop there.

While these programmes are required to address immediate needs, it is also important to work at a community stakeholder level to ensure that children from the most underprivileged backgrounds are not denied fundamental Rights needed to facilitate their transition to adulthood, one of those being the Right to Education.

We are currently focussing our energies on Bagath Singh Nagar School, a desperately underfunded government school in which the majority of the building cannot currently be used out of danger of roof collapse. 100 children aged between 4-16 years of age are availing education in a room that comfortably hosts 20. Although we were able to raise a very welcome £98 to begin repairs to the school building, we urgently require an additional Rs.11600 (with the current landslide of the £, that’s about £160) to complete this work. For more info on the school, click here.

So our request to you is this. If you were unable to make it on the night, if you found some loose change (gold) left in your pocket on the ride home, if you have a malleable friend to hit up (such as the one you couldn’t drag out the house cos it was looking like rain), please visit http://www.down2earthdown2us.org/pages/donate.html and click on the PayPal symbol. Chuck us a fiver. It all adds up, believe us.

See you next time!

Big Love

Down2Earth International
...sowing seeds of positive change