Deep Griha Society’s City of Child (CoC) recently hosted postgraduate students from the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) while they conducted a two-week rural community outreach programme.

Shubham Lagad is 12 years old and lives at DGS’s City of Child (CoC) residential project. He and his nine-year-old sister Neha have lived at CoC for the past five years.

Four ‘Tippy Taps’ have been installed at the Deep Griha Academy as part of a volunteer-led project to ensure good hygiene among the children.

Teaching children to wash their hands after going to the toilet, after sneezing and before eating can prevent many health problems.

I volunteered with Deep Griha Society for 5 months, and by the end of my time here I definitely did not want to go home. Deep Griha is incredible, and the work they carry out is so vital to the local community. Each of the projects here has its own way of empowering the local people and enabling them to build a better life for themselves.

The Monsoon season at Deep Griha has been a busy one. On the 5th July we celebrated Deep Griha’s 36th Birthday; volunteers, staff and supporters were all in attendance. There was dancing, singing, games, presentations, food and thank yous to the supporters who could make it. It was a joyous day and enjoyed by everyone. The following day all of the staff and volunteers ventured out to Vidyanagari and the City of Child. On arrival we were all treated to Pune’s best Wada Pav! Then, with the representatives from Centrica (who are sponsoring the construction of the second school building), we symbolically ‘broke the ground’, and construction is now underway! After this we all had a delicious lunch at the City of Child followed by the inauguration of the Chapel there in memory of Rev. Bhaskar Onawale. Towards the end of July an ex-Deep Griha volunteer visited us, and she spent some time at the City of Knowledge running a training programme with the teachers, whilst other international volunteers ran a variety of activity sessions for the students.