Helping out in rural areas

Hi Fellow Travellers
I am almost on my way to India and hate to carry an empty backpack in.
Can you suggest things that I can bring from the western world to rural areas in India that will help out- In Particular the children, My thoughts were pencils, school books (Maths,English Ect), paperback novels, all of these things will be bought at flea markets in Australia for next to no cost and hopefully help a family out. Look forward to your replies.
PS If you think it is best to take nothing and tread lightly- also like to hear your thoughts.

i'd forget about the academic books, but that's just me. tools of wonder sound more enriching. maybe some kaleidoscopes, watercolors, color pencils, art type things.

save yourself the difficulty of lugging that stuff around. buy all school supplies here in India, it's cheaper and you can find them in any mid-sized city.

bring art supplies or musical instruments, definitely. kids just don't get the opportunity to paint/make shell necklaces/play music/etc in rural areas, and you will be delighted by how ecstatic it makes them.

frisbees are great, too. allows the girls to play as well as the boys.

Well I guess this is sort of after-the-fact since the last post was more than 2 months ago...but I just thought I'd say that I'm volunteering at a school in Kerala next Fall, and my friend and I were told that instead of bringing school supplies from Canada we should definitely buy them in India. Not only is everything almost 10 times cheaper, but it helps the economy too if you're buying stuff in a smaller area.

Kerala is INDIA's NO: 1 in literacy.
Find some good place where your time and feeling could get some real effect.
Try MAHARAHSTRA-work with tribals...only then you can know what's struggle for existance is.
KERALA is popular holiday place for "W" and you are thinking of doing some good to peole who may not be needing that much.

The most helpful things you might carry from home are English-language children's educational materials--coloring books with the alphabet, pictures of animals, etc.

It would be advisable to visit the place first ,evaluate their needs and then buy stuff locally this would mean you can do more good for less.

I stayed in a village and then really knew what they needed . cloth material for new clothes, paper,pencil etc.

http://www.fpmt.org/maitri/village.asp
http://www.ashanet.org/

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.--Winston Churchill

On my recent trip, I visited some rural areas like Mandu and South Orissa where there are tribal villages - some of these tribes live quite comfortably off the land and are pretty healthy, nourished and wear tribal clothing. They are mostly illiterate and their families prefer to keep the children that way so that they continue to farm the land as a community. T

he best thing to buy in India (and I agree why take things from home if cheaper in India) for these communities should you visit them are blankets (many of the children have bronchitus), batteries (as some of them have tape recorder in the village to play music), and footballs or volleyball net/balls.

If the village has been introduced to healthcare and the shamen accepts working with a medical doctor, then medicine which can be easily purchased over the counter and is a good idea (especially anti-malarials) as long as the village has someone who the doctor has trained to dispense these.

Dinah

above all I can request you to find a rightway of giving it.Otherwise these poor minds will always expect such gifts from other tourists when meet next.Thx

I totally most villager are proud people .And do things from the bottom of their heart. So gifting them a few thing in to show your gratitude goes a long way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospita...Sustainability

I'm not going over there thinking that I'm going to change the literacy rate . My friend and I are just helping out with conversational English and whatever else is needed around 2 hill station/village schools, not teaching reading and writing. We're also working on various fundraising projects (for the schools, not our own travel costs) over the summer before we go. Could you please explain to me how these individual schools, that are understaffed and lacking the money needed for proper learning spaces and materials, will benefit less from our tiny contribution of funding and extra assistance just because of a literacy statistic?

I'm sorry if I seem really defensive about this, but I really dislike how so many people seem to assume that any young person going overseas to volunteer automatically has an ignorant, "I'm going to save the world" attitude. I'm really not trying to turn this into any sort of argument! It's just something that I find really frustrating.

I just think that spending time helping out in a small area is a really great way to experience being part of a community and culture that is vastly different from my own. It's fun and it's interesting, so why not?