With their annual trip to India looming, the secondary students of the private school are seeking out donations of clothing and toiletries to bring to the young girls of Sheela Bal Bavan, a girls-only orphanage in Jaipur, India.
"We are not going there as tourists," teacher Leigh-Ann Malcolm told 16 students chosen for the trip during a meeting last Wednesday. "We are going to see our sisters."
Founded in 1991 by Sheela Bhatnagar and her husband, Dr. Jyoti Bhatnagar - two retired Montreal educators - Sheela Bal Bhaven (SBB), or Sheela's Children's Home in English, is a home for girls who otherwise would have none. There are now 20 to 25 girls living there at any one time, according to documents provided by St. George's School.
St. George's began its partnership with the orphanage in 1994 through then-Head of School Bahadur Bhatla. They have since been back every December.
Departing on Boxing Day and returning on Jan. 15, the students will live at the orphanage for 10 days while in India.
A clothing drive began this week at the school's elementary school campus. As these students are about the same age as many of the girls at SBB, Malcolm said she believes these donations from the elementary school students and their familes are the most crucial to their cause.
"We want to say [to the elementary school students] that the girls at SBB are our sisters," she reiterated to the 16 travellers, getting the teens ready for an assembly the next day at the elementary school campus just down The Boulevard.
The clothing drive will graduate on to the high school at the end of November, with all gifts not suitable for the girls in India being donated to Tyndale-St. George's Community Centre.
