Visitor from India

A lovely day at work today, we had a guest from The Leprosy Mission Trust India, Tina Mendis (on the left here), who runs the Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) and Livelihood Programmes across that huge country. It was great hearing about what is being done especially in Bankura Vocational Training Centre, which is supported by TLM Scotland, and to see the difference that can be made in people's lives. We invited some volunteers to join the staff and interns to hear her talk, and then had a nice relaxed lunch together. She also showed us some fantastic lamps which are made by a wee artisan's collective in Tamil Nadu, but she was bringing to show to staff at The Leprosy Mission Trading company, hoping that they may feature in catalogues in the future - I'd buy one, especially the banana fibre one.

We heard about one young man who graduated from the diesel mechanics course 5 years ago, and initially went to work in a wee local engineering company, but is now a supervisor with Tata (for those who don't know anything about business in India, this is a HUGE conglomerate), and his wages not only support himself and his parents, but he is also paying for the education of his younger brothers and sisters. His father was a day labourer who contracted leprosy and found it harder and harder to get work due to the horrible combination of stigma and disability, meaning that the kids weren't able to go to school.

It was great to hear that the VTCs are now so respected that employers pay TLM to recruit first from amongst the latest crop of graduates. I knew that employers sometimes conducted campus interviews, and we've had great stories from Bankura of the entire welding class being employed by a Cummins subsidiary which was opening in the area, or of a big group of girls on the knitting and tailoring course who were employed by a garment factory that provided them with accommodation and also employed an older lady from the rest home nearby as hostel mother for them, but this is a whole other level of respect for the standard of training that the students are being given. What is most interesting is that the employers are queueing up to employ kids who often haven't even been able to finish school, and so haven't been able to get onto the standard government certified courses, but have been accepted on the courses run by TLM, which sometimes (but not always) have a lower 'official' certification.

Sorry, I am very enthusiastic about The Leprosy Mission, as you may well remember from the last time!