HCK Kolkata 2025

Today Mrs. O'Brien and Ms. Kinsella's groups went to teach in St. Georges day school again. We taught Geography and English to class 5 and did a PE class with class 3, while Ms. Ni Chairbre's group stayed behind in St. Mary's to teach in the Mary Rice special needs school. We came back to St. Mary's to have lunch and meet back up with the other group. It was also Katie's 17th birthday today so we suprised her with a mini party including party hats and a red velvet cake.  After lunch we all headed back out to the city on the metro to try and find Kolkata's largest Mosque. We took an interesting walk to get to the Mosque, where we ended up stuck in the middle of a fruit market, when we eventually found the Mosque we were denied entry. We made our way back to St Mary's where we bumped into the boys from CBS Middleton who had been volunteering at the soup kitchen, and played a volleyball match together. We ended our day by having dinner and chatting.

 Hello all, this morning we got off to an early start with a wake up call of 4:00am! Unfortunately, our bus was supposed to arrive at 4:30 but did not arrive until 5:30 ('Indian Stretch Time'). Eventually we arrived at the Mother House which is where St. Mother Theresa founded her congregation and is buried. We got to enjoy a lovely mass alongside many of the sisters in this congregation as well as other visitors such as groups from the HOPE foundation and another school in Dublin. We all found it very special and enjoyed seeing her tomb.  When we returned to St. Marys, we all headed for a much needed nap. Then, we ate toast and hopped on a metro into the markets. After a long look around the areas, involving being followed by many men trying to sell us their goods, we eventually found a lovely indoor market and were able to buy some lovely jewellery and phone cases!  After a long day of shopping, it was essential for us to stop by our favourite coffee shop in Kolkata, Fl...

Today we had a bit of a lie in before getting ready for the day which was a nice treat. We went on a bus tour around Kolkata, which we were all really excited for. We were greeted by our lovely tour guides Paro and Tirtha. We embarked on our journey and headed to the Birla Krishna Temple. We had to take off our shoes and Amelie was proud to jump right into the deep end by even taking off her socks!! We were shown around the temple and were educated about the different Hindu gods which was extremely fascinating.  Afterwards we hopped back on the bus and made our way to the next destination. We arrived at the Victoria Memorial which was breathtaking and we made sure to take lots of photos. This was definitely one of our favourite places we visited today.  We then walked over to St. Pauls Cathedral (an Anglican Cathedral) which was beautiful. Then we went for an nice walk along the Ganges River and had a great view of the new suspension bridge that connects Kolkata to Howrah....

Hey all, Yesterday, we went back to St. George's school and returned to teach the same class as our previous days there (Class 4). We spent the day sitting in on their class, helping them to revise for their upcoming exams.  For the final class of the day we taught a Geography lesson to them which involved matching flags with countries and famous monuments and it was very fun and informative.  After school we went on a walk around the city and we got traditional cake desserts from an independent bakery. Eventually we settled down in a cafe after spending a long time attempting to cross the road. Safe to say we all enjoyed the cafe as it had delicous drinks and lovely cool air conditioning. We walked through markets which we had to say no to many people trying to sell us goods. We got the metro back to St Mary's and played a super fun game of "Who am I" which had us all in fits of giggles. Today, we went to St George's school and we were given a new class to teach....

On Wednesday morning, we were given the very devastating news that Therese unfortunately had to leave India early in the morning due to a family emergency. Although we were all very upset by this news, we tried to stay positive for our experience with the HOPE foundation. We started off the day with heading to one of 5 HOPE creches in the South of Kolkata. We were greeted with a dance from a little girl dressed in traditional Indian clothing. This was a very special way to be welcomed into the creche. The two teachers in the creche also gave us information about how the HOPE foundation has been able to facilitate many young children that come from difficult circumstances including children whose parents are incarcerated. This experience was very enlightening and it was lovely to see the work that the HOPE foundation do.  Then, we headed back onto the bus and went to visit a learning centre in a slum area. This was a very positive experience in which we were able to play games and s...

Starting off the day we got up, had breakfast and got ready to leave St. Mary's. Eight of us and Ms Kinsella and Ms. Ni Chairbre, took the metro to St. George's, where we greeted our class. It was lovely to see some familiar faces from the children we bonded with on Monday. Meanwhile the other group stayed in St. Mary's where they took part in various activities with the children with intellectual disabilities and they very much enjoyed their day. At St. Georges we continued with our lesson plans and sat in on a few classes. We enjoyed engaging with the children and teachers throughout the day. At the start of the day there was an assembly where two groups performed dances and presented us and the boys from CBS with beautiful bracelets and scarves for the teachers, which was such a nice welcoming.  After another class we played games in the yard with all of the children which was a lot of fun. Throughout the day, we took part in various activities such as English class wher...