Advancing Young Lives Through Education Seychelles

Dear Supporter,

GVI Seychelles Marine Expedition at Cap Ternay hosted their quarterly Creole Day event at the President’s Village Children’s Home, Cap Ternay’s Charitable Trust. Staff and volunteers set up different tables with activities, such as bubble making, colouring, nail painting and the always popular face painting. Before the day had barely begun, most volunteers were already covered in face paint – from tiger stripes to butterflies. Some of the older kids played football with the volunteers, kicking the ball around in the rain while the younger set played with hula hoops and blew bubbles everywhere. After a morning of fun and games, the staff at the President’s Village cooked a delicious Creole lunch of traditional items including Creole chicken curry, lentils, potato and egg salad, grilled meats and other local dishes. After lunch, volunteers took the kids across the road for a swim in the ocean to cool off (and rinse off all that face paint). It is a fun day for the kids, and a great way for GVI volunteers to give some of their time and attention to local children in need.

In addition to the Creole Days that GVI hosts every three months. GVI staff and volunteers also participate in various fund raising events to raise money for the President’s Village Children’s Home. In 2013, GVI and the President’s Village decided on a new focus of the fund raising, to purchase and install solar panel equipment on the individual houses to help reduce their overhead cost and help conserve resources on the island. The project aims to provide a renewable energy source for the children’s home which will help to reduce their carbon footprint and help to sustain our environment little by little. The solar panels will also help in reducing the overall utility bills of the village allowing more funds to be available to be spent on the children for things such as weekend activities and day trips.

GVI will be starting the project on a step by step process. At the moment we are planning on setting up solar panels on one of the six houses allowing this house to run solely on solar power. Over time GVI Cap Ternay hope to raise more funds to assist in expanding the solar panel project to eventually encompass the entire Children’s home which will mean that the home will run on clean eco-friendly power. As well as your support and donations, in February, volunteers and staff participated in the nationwide Seychelles EcoMarathon, running distances from 5K to the Half Marathon to raise money and bring the current total funds raised to £6,000.00 which is now enough to actually begin moving forward with the project!

Thank you for supporting this project, we look forward to sharing with you how the solar panel project progresses!

All the best

GVI Seychelles

Links:

• http://www.gvi.org