Back to the football

On Wed and Thurs morning I was able to start up the football again with the street kids in Mahim. We are still looking for a better ground for them to use for more permanent training but for the time being it is still the dusty park in Mahim that we are using. This seems to be getting more and more crowded with other groups using it for cricket and football. When the kids turn up at the park they put on their Chelsea kits, and I have now given some England kits to some younger boys(Thanks to kit donations from Cleves School). They all look very smart and they love wearing the kit and their shoes ( I will upload some photos of them tomorrow). I can start to see some real improvement in their playing and some of them were able to attend a football camp during November at the Mumbai football club. It will be great if we can work towards entering the Street Kids World Cup in 2014. We played for almost an hour and a half on both Wed and Thursday which is great for the fitness levels. After the football session and once the kids had had their food we then moved on to the two Bandra locations. It was difficult for me to watch the teaching as both of these days are Hindi but I was still able to get an idea of how the teachers are doing with their teaching methods and styles.Just from some brief observations, a bit of re-capping on the reward system might help.
Friday was an opportunity for me to get together with Biju, Secu and Jitesh to discuss the teaching program and the ways forward. We are looking at having some of the teachers move around the different buses (soon there will be three!!) teaching a specific subject. Those that are more confident with the English and Maths will be assigned to teach those subjects. We are also looking to set up a community coordinator in each slum area to keep more in touch with the families and identify the children who are not attending school and not coming on the bus. We are hoping to have some more teachers starting very soon and this will be a big help once the third bus come along.
Next week the medical van will be up and running as Biju has called in a doctor for a couple of hours each day. This will be the first time that I will have seen this up and running. Hopefully I will be able to offer some of my first aid services!
On Saturday my friend Charlie arrived and she will be spending a few days in Mumbai before we travel to Goa. Today we went on a trip to South Mumbai to see the Gateway to India and the Tahj Hotel. It was pretty crowded but not as many foreigners as I expected. We took a nice 30 boat trip and visited some of the art galleries. Whilst at the Gateway, I was approached by a 14 year old boy, called Ganesh, trying to sell me flowers. I chatted to him whilst we walked along and discovered that he is a street kid from Delhi who came to Mumbai to earn some money. He does not attend school but has managed to pick up lots of the English language. I introduced him to Manoj who was waiting in the car for us and he gave him the vision rescue details. I am hoping he will travel to Mahim and join the bus teaching program. That way he can continue on with his education and we can maybe get him some vocational training. We had a lovely Indian meal in the evening and now I am ready for the new week ahead. We have teacher training sessions starting and on Wed we will leave for Goa.