In December 2014, 43 volunteers traveled to India for a project to build classrooms at the Seventh-day Adventist Higher Secondary School in Nedumkandam, located in southwestern India.
There are more than 600 students attending the school with 48 of them living in the campus dormitory. Most of these residential students are from families that work at area spice and tea plantations. The children are enrolled as part of a government program that hopes to break the cycle of generational illiteracy in these communities. Building these additional classrooms will help to provide more space for these government-funded boarding students.
Along with construction, volunteers also organized medical outreach, including cataract surgeries and an educational program called ‘Helping Babies Breathe.’ Helping Babies Breathe is a neonatal resuscitation curriculum for resource-limited circumstances. More than 90 nursing students participated in the event, which was organized by a volunteer and held at a nearby hospital.