My name is Susan McCarthy and I am a final year B. Ed student at the Froebel Department, Maynooth University. Every year the Froebel Department send a group of graduate teachers over to Kolkata to teach for 5 weeks. I have been involved in fundraising for these graduate students for the past three years and this year I finally have the incredible opportunity to volunteer myself!

The Hope Foundation, under which the Froebel-Hope Teacher Education Partnership operates, is a non-profit organisation which is set up in Kolkata in India and works with street children born into poverty. The Hope Foundation enables these children to have access to an education in safe, child-friendly environments which will help them to grow and flourish. As a result of HOPE’s Holistic Education Programme for Underprivileged Children in the slums of Kolkata, over 4,000 children are enabled to complete their primary education through the setting up of HOPE coaching centres and existing formal schools. If you're in doubt check out the incredible work the Hope Foundation do on their website!http://www.hopefoundation.ie/ 

In June I will travel with twenty three others from the Froebel Department to Kolkata from the 5th of June 2017 to the 7th  of July, 2017. In order to do this, I must raise €2000 to fund my teaching, with the money going directly to the Partnership.

I wouldn't be able to avail of this opportunity without the support of you fantastic and generous people! This is a project that I really believe in and something I feel so honoured to be a part of.

Míle Buíochas (A thousand thanks!)

Susan