A good heart and strong will

A good heart and strong will can make marvels. More than 18 years ago Paul and Werner from Belgium visited Kerala and were surprised to see many children who could not go to school because they had to work. After they went back to Belgium, the big decision was taken: they sold their guesthouse and used the money to open a school in Kerala, which they named Sebastian Indian School Project (SISP) after their former guesthouse.

How many times do people think of doing similar things, but never have the courage to? I think that selling everything, leaving your relatives and your country to move somewhere completely different to start a totally new activity.. well, that’s not something everyone can do. One thing that still amazes me is how Paul and Werner managed to set up such a big project in a country where the culture is so different from the European one, where yes and no are expressed with an identical shaking of the head and time flows at a different length.

What started as a school for drop-out children is now much more. About 50 children come to school every day from 9 to 4 pm. The school bus picks them up and drops them every day. The children are not only offered standard classes of Malayalam (the local language), Hindi, English, Math, Science and Arts, but also attend Yoga, Computer and Dance classes. Once they are re-admitted to the normal school, they keep coming back to SISP from 4 to 6 pm for tuition classes. The children and all the staff are also given breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack every day.

This is the schedule from Monday to Friday, but to keep the children away from the streets during weekends, a Surf club and a Skate club have been founded. The Kovalam Surf club takes advantage of one of the main attractions of this coast, the waves! The Kovalam Skate club was recently started and the first skate ramp of all Kerala was built for it. Both clubs are a way of teaching the children that anything can be learnt, if done with dedication. Also, the clubs aim to accustom the children to attend on a regular basis. The rule is: No school, no surf/skate!

SISP also includes SEP, Sebastian Employment Projects. This was conceived to give work to people in needy situations. Using recyclable materials like coconut shells and magazines, jewels, recyclable bags and many other objects are made and sold.

Finally, one of the hardest jobs is done by the social workers: they select the families that need financial or medical help, visit them monthly and keep reports. They also help numerous microcredit groups (where generally illiterate women participate) to keep records and deal with the bank.

Managing so many projects is surely tiring and stressful but every morning, when I enter the school, I think that it must be a great satisfaction for Paul and Werner to see their dream not only realized, but even enlarged to have now hundreds of people whose life is greatly improved by SISP.

For any further info please visit www.sisp.in or www.sisp.be.