AN161 Helping Street Children in India: a volunteer recounts

Wednesday, 16 November 2016

6:30pm - 7:45pm

Cost: Free

How many of us read heart rending stories of poverty-stricken families in developing countries and think:  “Oh, I wish I could do something for these people?” Some of us send money, but Barbara Cox, for twenty years an avid visitor to India, has gone much further than that, spending six weeks for the last three years volunteering in South Goa on the west coast of India – part of the time helping at a refuge for destitute street children and the rest in nearby slum villages assisting at two community centers focused on empowering women.  In this talk we will hear about the actual work she does as well as about the conditions for women in particular, their struggles with dire poverty, and about her encounters with Indian teachers and volunteers at other NGO’s providing services in that community.

Barbara Cox, a psychotherapist and grief counselor, started out as a nurse in her native New Zealand, then worked in Australia, London and Paris before