Every year a team comes from Child Aid Ireland (CAI) to Tamil Nadu, a southern province in India, the size of Ireland. People on the team pay their own air fare and their accommodation while we are here (basic 3* hotel). We hire a bus for the time the team is here and we all pay the cost of that. The purpose of the visit is to make a tour of villages, schools and parishes where children are sponsored as a help towards their education. At present, about 1600 children are sponsored, receiving €20 every two months. This means that they do not have to go out and earn wages for the family, that they have clothes for school and books. From the beginning, twenty years ago, CAI has had support for the education as its main priority.
The visit of the CAI team each year obviously also means direct personal contact to the children and families supported, and with the many people who work alongside them: teachers, sisters, lay people and priests.
This year an additional purpose of the visit was to carry out a complete audit of the work of CAT (Child Aid Trust) - the Indian arm of CAI. This was mostly carried out by Anne Patterson, Mary Leyden and myself, and we came out here five days before the rest of the team to do this work. Gladly our audit was completed very successfully, and we found that all aspects of the work of Child Aid Trust here in Tamil Nadu were working correctly and properly. A number of new structures were set up for the future.
Most of this audit was carried out in a full-time office which CAI operates in a small town called Polur. It is staffed by Fr. A. Joseph, a diocesan priest, assisted by Mr. Johnson, a field worker.
To-day (Friday), Anne Patterson and Mary Layden left the group to go on to Goa for a short holiday, so they will be missed by the rest of us having made a great contribution of work here for the past two weeks.
Photograph: left to right Derbhilla Moore (transition year student from Drogheda); Tony Barron (he founded CAI over twenty years ago); Mary Layden (retired bank official and treasurer of CAI); Anne Patterson (retired national school principal and secretary of CAI); "Me";
in front: Breda Byrne (hospital administration worker and committee member of CAI); Fr.Michael Murtagh (my former colleague in Balbriggan and chair of CAI). Micheal Gately, a retired schoolteacher from Portmarnock is also part of the CAI team here but was absent from the photo.
