Our current intern Neha giving a speech on Republic Day about the different work she plans to do in women’s agency. She will be at Hunar Ghar until September 2012, figuring out how we can do more to address health and women’s rights issues in the community.

A short history of our interns

Our first interns in India we Rob Culverhouse and Educate for Life co-founder Ed. Yes, Ed too counts as an intern (as we understand it), he had to go through the process of learning and adapting to a new environment as anyone does. Rob and Ed built the first 4 classrooms on a previously unused patch of rocky wasteland, that seeded the creation of Hunar Ghar.

Following Rob and Ed was the other Educate for Life co-founder Ash. Again, he move to India to live in very challenging conditions to recruit and train the teachers, admit children and then begin the slow process of developing the school.

Our first non-trustee interns when the school was running were Becky and Bekka. They were at Hunar Ghar for a month at the end of our first year of having children. They worked with the balwadi teachers and children in creativity. Bekka found the experience so trying that she was unable to stay for the agreed amount of time, as did Rosie who, upon visiting us for a week, decided that it was too much for her and disappeared never to write to us again!

Next came Teddy, our lead architect, who built and inspired our infrastructure to be what it is today, and now co-manages the sustainable architecture branch of Educate for Life. Tom Clark, a stonemason and sculptor, came and taught the teachers and students how to mould clay and fire it, as well as initiating an exchange between Hunar Ghar children and a primary school near his village in England. More recently, Kerry-Anne, another architect, designed the accommodation that is currently being built.