THE CANDLE LIGHT DINNER

Vision believes that focusing on the Girl Child is especially important. Not only is the need greater at this age, but also the capacity of young girls for learning and change is outstanding. Following the success of last year’s Candlelight Dinner programme, Vision is happy to once again propose this fruitful activity.

As you remember, this event should ideally take place on the 2nd Saturday of May each year – or on the following Sunday. This year the dates are Saturday, May 12 or Sunday, May 13, 2007. Again the project will be devoted to raising money in order to put children through school in India. The options for this year are the following:

1st option:

Support for three young girls in Lucknow, India: Sapna 12, Suita 10, and little Sangita 8. The total cost for one girl is 3300 Rupees or €80.00 per year. For the three girls it is naturally €240.00 per year. This covers admission fee for one year, tuition, two uni-forms, one pair of new shoes and the required books for the school year. This support will last until these girls have reached their goal of receiving a school diploma.

2nd option:

Support for three siblings: Umesh, Soni and Poonam Kumar, who have recently lost both their parents. The total cost for the three siblings per year is €350.00, which covers enrolment fees, uniforms and books.

To continue the schooling for these two proposals, VISION invites its members and collaborators to organise a ‘Candlelight Dinner’ event, which can be under the form of a coffee morning, luncheon or evening dinner on Saturday 13th or Sunday 14th May, 2006. This event may be held in a home, a restaurant or any other suitable venue. Friends, family, associations, public dignitaries, etc. may be invited to this event. Tickets may either be sold or, if preferred, donations may be raised at the event. The hostess might like to make a suitable presentation concerning the reasons for the event.

Our local womens group in the North East of Scotland, invited Carrie and Sue (2 participants at the last Vision conference), to come and tell us of their time there. It seemed a wonderful time had been had by both of them (no surprises there!). It was during this meeting that they told us about the Lucknow school in India and so we decided to plan something for the end of May. We each took on a different task. We were going to have an international dinner which we would charge a set price for, and then additional fundraising events throughout the evening. Some of us cooked while others were in charge of inviting the press, making decorations and fund boxes, etc.

Everyone had a wonderful evening. We numbered about 50. The food was truly international, Morrocan tagine, Indian bread and curries, sate cooking outside on the barbeque are but to mention a few. After dinner we had different fundraisers in each room of the house. The downstairs bedroom had 3 people offering Reiki. My daughters' bedroom had French braiding. Upstairs in the playroom we had a chiropodist and a reflexologist, and another room offered massages. In the living room we had arts, crafts and cards for sale. We raised £422 (Euro 621), and had a nice article printed in the local paper the following week.

Having a successful evening like this was a boost to our womens group and we plan to have a similar event next year. My love to you all.