Oasis team impacted by Indian visit
Oasis team member, Justin Stech (left) recently spent two weeks in India helping disabled children at two orphanages.
Eight marginalised young people from The Salvation Army’s Oasis Youth Support Network spent 16 days completing philanthropic work with children in India late last year.
On 20 November, the Oasis team travelled to Chennai in southern India and visited two locally run orphanages for children and young people afflicted by disabilities.
At the orphanages – MITHRA (Madras Institute to Habilitate Retarded Afflicted) and Prema Vasam – the young people from Oasis painted walls and assisted disabled children with both their education and feeding.
“We supported the kids in school, sitting with them one-to-one, helping them with their literacy and numeracy,” said mission trip leader Josh Field.
“It was really being there and supporting the kids in the orphanages and especially at meal times because a lot of the kids couldn’t actually feed themselves – helping with feeding and cleaning up.”
Many of the Oasis young people had never been overseas and were overwhelmed by the poverty they saw. While troubled by the devastating poverty, the young people left impacted by the orphans’ caring nature towards one another.
“The children really did teach us to live in the moment, their smiles and positive attitude to life was inspiring,” said Josh.
Impacted by their experiences at the orphanages, at the end of the trip, the young people from Oasis collected funds, including their own money, to give to the two orphanages.
The trip was organised by Jan Tracy, a long-time supporter of Oasis and founder of travel company, Unique Journeys. Together with young people from Oasis, a movie and dinner night was held to raise funds for the trip.
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