Summary of work carried out from 1 June to 8 June 2014



NER Group, Spain with the help of EDI, India, organized a social service camp in Kalimpong in June
2014. Volunteers from Ekin India and Glenn Family Foundation, a Kalimpong based NGO participated in this project. NER Group through EDI (Educational Development Initiatives) sponsored many educational items for eight schools in Kalimpong. All these schools have students from very humble background and the infrastructure and facilities are also very poor. NER group through EDI gave a number of Desks and benches, books, teaching learning material, water filters, computers, library furniture and solar lights to these schools who otherwise can’t afford all this. Some of these schools have students coming from very far off places. They have to travel for two and a half- three hours to reach the school and another three to go back. The plight of the local people and their hardships really moved the volunteers. Life in these villages is very hard yet the people want to continue their study.
In Reon Dabling Primary School, one of the schools where these gifts were given, the school wall had crumbled down due to rainfall just a night before we (the Ekin and GFF volunteers) visited there. The school doesn’t have funds to get it repaired and it has become very dangerous for the students. But the students were very enthusiastic to study. One of the schools, St. Thomas Primary School, is situated in Longshyel, the most remote area of Kalimpong Sub-division. This area hardly has any connectivity with the main land. There are no roads constructed in this area. In fact we were extremely surprised to know that even today this area doesn’t have any electricity supply leave aside mobile network. No wonder the whole village had gathered in the school to see the installation of the solar lights the NER group had given them. We can’t even imagine what the value of those solar lights is for the people there and how grateful the people are.

The students as well as the teachers everywhere were overjoyed on receiving the generous gifts. They extended a very warm welcome to the volunteers and honoured them with their traditional scarves called “Khada” in their local language. The students in the various schools presented an excellent cultural programme. The volunteers from Ekin India also performed some skits and dances for the children and local people. The Ekin volunteers had camped on the grounds of S.S.S. Reon Primary School.
NER and EDI arranged full floor repairs of the S.S.S. Reon Primary School which was earlier in a very bad shape. All the classes were run in a single room. NER and EDI got wooden partitions made to separate all the classes. Ekin and GFF volunteers painted the whole school. Mr. B.T. Lepcha, one of the founders of the Reon SSS Primary School, S.S.S. Memorial Junior High School and St. Thomas School, recently visited the GFF Office in Kalimpong. According to him the children are very happy to receive the new desk and benches, to see the electric lights which they ahd never seen before, the wonderful books and specially the new
floor, the new beautiful  colour of the school building and the partition which has made them study properly without getting distracted by other classes.
NER and EDI also organized a medical camp for the people living in the remote areas of Kalimpong. All the arrangements were made by the GFF volunteers. The EKIN volunteers helped in conducting the medical camp. There were four doctors and two pathologists from Kalimpong who had volunteered to come to this camp and did free medical check-up. For people living in such remote areas, getting medical check-up done is not at all easy. They have to travel very far and spend a lot of money. Besides medical check-up, blood grouping of 200 people was done by Adarsh Nursing Home Pathological Department. This was very important as people didn’t know their blood groups and in case of an emergency where blood was required more than 10 people used to travel to hospital which are very far as they didn’t know whose blood will match with blood of the patient.
This meant a lot of expenditure of these poor people. But now since everyone has been given his or her blood group card, their expenditure on travelling unnecessarily to hospitals to give blood for a different blood group, will be avoided. De-worming was also done for about 200 children. After the medical camp the local people thanked the volunteers and honoured them with “Khada”. They also presented a cultural programme.
The project ended on 8th June 2014 and all of us from EKIN left Kalimpong carrying with us the wonderful memories of the tour which we will cherish throughout our lives. We are really grateful to NER, EKIN, EDI and GFF for giving us a chance to be a part of this programme. The people who have been benefitted by this project really needed this support and we are glad we could do something for them. It is very hard to imagine and even harder to express how grateful the people of
the various villages of Kalimpong are. For us it has been a really overwhelming experience.  We are usually so engrossed in our lives that we fail to notice the sufferings of the people around us. This tour has really been a thought- provoking experience which has given us a new insight and made us think for the uplift of the underprivileged sections of our society. We hope NER group will give us an opportunity in future too to serve this world in whatever humble way we can.

Gallery of pictures


Below you can see a few collages of pictures, showing day by day what happened at Kalimpong with our team. If you want to see the whole gallery in Google+, click here.

Jubilee Primary School 2.6.14

 Teesta Bazaar School 2.6.14



Ramlal Dahal School 2.6



 Milan Sangh School 03.06



 Reon Dabling Primary School 04.06


Reon SSS Primary School 04.04.14-06.06


SSS Memorial High School 04.06


St.Thomas School 06.06


Medical Camp 07.06



Daily Report -- Day 8



8.6.14
We all got ready after an early breakfast as it was the day to depart from Kalimpong. Mr. Saom Namchu had come to see us off. He once again honoured us with “khada” and gave all of us beautiful gifts. We then left for Bagdogra from where we had to board our flight. We carried with us the wonderful memories of the tour which we will cherish throughout our lives. We are really grateful to NER and EKIN who gave us a chance to be a part of this programme. The people who have been benefitted by this project really needed this support and we are glad we could do something for them. It is very hard to imagine and even harder to express how grateful the people of the various villages of Kalimpong are to NER group. We hope NER group will give us an opportunity in future too to serve this world in whatever humble way we can.

Thank you NER, EDI, GFF and EKIN.

Daily Report -- Day 7



7.6.14
We got up early in the morning and packed our bags. After having an early breakfast and bidding goodbye to our camp staff we headed towards Sadhu Sunder Singh Memorial High School. A medical camp was organized by GFF and EDI in collaboration with doctors from Siliguri and Kalimpong. NER group had sponsored the medical camp. The details about this camp are mentioned below:
No of patients - 176

No of doctors - Two namely Dr Sharon.D. Fonning and Dr Swapnendu Basu & they were joined by two doctors namely Dr A.manur Rehaman and Dr Tulika Ghosh but Dr Ghosh and Dr Rehaman helped us to distribute medicines and came to check special cases as they were skin doctors. 

No of Pathologists - Two 
Besides the Free medical checkup we did blood grouping which was done by Adarsh Nursing Home Pathology department. This was very important as people didn’t know their blood groups and in case of an emergency where blood was required more than 10 people used to travel to hospital which are very far as they didn’t know whose blood will match with the patient. This meant a lot of expenditure of these poor people. But now since everyone has been given his or her blood group card, their expenditure on travelling unnecessarily to hospitals to give blood for a different blood group will be avoided.


No of Blood grouping done was - 200 (As per the record of the Adarsh Nursing Home registrar. 

De-Worming was also done for children - Approximately 200 children


Two patients were sent for follow up - 

A) Young student of Sadhu Sundar Singh Primary School Reon who had broken his hand and was checked and treated by the Orthopedic Doctor in Kalimpong. Name of the Student - Shovap Lepcha age 06 year old 

B)  A middle age person who had skin infection was checked recently and will be soon put at the Sardar Kalimpong hospital for further treatment, Name of the Patient - Mr Amber Badhur Gurung - age - 56
The people were very grateful to NER group which had generously sponsored the medical camp through EDI. For people living in such remote areas, getting medical check-ups done is not at all easy. They have to travel very far and spend a lot of money. So we can understand how thankful the people were. We presented some gifts to the Doctors who had taken out time from their busy schedule to be a part of this camp. The students presented some dances. The EKIN volunteers entertained the kids there. We taught the teachers and students some craft items. We also presented some gifts to the members of GFF as a token of appreciation for the wonderful work they are doing. The camp got over at 3 p.m. The local community members extended a vote of thanks after which we proceeded towards Kalimpong.