Thurles students visit HOPE Foundation projects they helped fund in Kolkata

During Holy Week, twelve hard-working and selfless girls travelled with their two teachers and fifty other secondary school students, from counties Cork and Limerick to Kolkata with the HOPE Foundation on a schools’ immersion programme.

For the last ten months, our 12 TY students have worked tirelessly and earnestly to generate as much fundraising as they could for the HOPE Foundation’s projects in Kolkata, India.

The girls spent the week visiting many of the HOPE projects in the city slums, dumps and streets, where they got to see first-hand how the money that they had raised is being directly used to save, care for, aid and educate street and slum children. This was an experience of a lifetime for our girls.

It was a bittersweet experience seeing the incredibly poor and harsh conditions that these children live in, and yet how happy they are to be in these projects and to engage with visitors from Ireland. This trip certainly was a rollercoaster of emotions that our girls will never forget.

The HOPE Foundation is doing fantastic work for the children of Kolkata, who are lucky enough to be found. Our twelve students were a credit to themselves, their parents and their families and brilliant ambassadors for our school.

We are so proud of each and every one of you – you have helped to save lives!

Sincere gratitude to our teacher, Ms Susan King and Ms Dearbhla Neville, who travelled with the girls and minded them.