Most of this is taken from the most recent brochure talking about the project, from ICHEC.

The idea is to give students an opportunity to live for one month in a different cultural environment
and to think about this experience. We don’t want to form students with a one-sided view of the
world. And the most efficient way to make them conscious of the cultural diversity of the world is
to send them abroad.  
 
Why India? Why Burkina Faso? We want them to discover a point of view different from the
occidental one. These countries are totally different from what they could have seen in Europe
or in US. But we don’t want to send our students as tourists. As a tourist you don’t have the
opportunity to really meet people. So we had to find something more enriching and satisfying
for our students on their road to world citizenship..
 
They participate in a local development project India.
Our students live in a village for three weeks.  They learn about the Indian way of life from
the inside. In exchange for this unique experience, the students are required to participate
financially and personally in a local development project, in building small houses for destitute
families.

The Bishop of Salem, the Bishop of Dharmapuri, Sr Anna Mary and Mr Govindaraju, Director of SEVAI
- Society for Education Village Action and Improvement take care of the building aspects and the
accommodation of the students.

The participants are divided in small teams of +/- 10 persons. Each team lives together during
one month in the village where the houses are to be built. This is one of the most important
and enriching aspects of the project. 
 
During three weeks, each team works in their own village, building the houses (at least, they
participate in the building, being a helping hand for the Indian workers who effectively do
the biggest part of the work).
 
Our students have no particular skills to build houses. In fact, Indian workers are fully
self-sufficient. But it’s essential for the students to participate in the
building because:

• they really want to be helpful towards the destitute families, and not
  only by giving money, they really want to do something with their
  hands,
• for their first trip in a so called “third world” country, they won’t come
  as specialists of something, or with special skills, and they will actually be
  less efficient than the Indian workers. That’s a good lesson of humility
  for future businessmen and businesswomen.
• Building houses is their alibi to be in the village. They are not tourists,
  they have a particular reason to be there.

 
For all these reasons, we think it’s essential for our students to participate in the
building of the houses.

Raising Money as Education

Raising money is one of the biggest challenges for the participants.  Past participants
have sold wine from the family vineyards, organized concerts, events, carwashes
and countless other things.

If you would like to contribute please contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit this link.