My name is Charlotte Cooper and I live in Kells, Co.Meath. I am a 20 year old student in Trinity College, Dublin and am currently in first year Bess which is Business, Economics, Sociology and Political Science; I plan on majoring in pure Economics.

In college life I am particularly involved in volunteering and charitable societies such as VDP and SUAS as well as other external activities and this year I am honoured to have been chosen to represent SUAS by travelling to Kolkata, India. There is a small group of us who will spend the entire summer (June, July, August) volunteering in local schools teaching English and educating communities who have nothing. The schools we are volunteering in are completely impoverished and have little more than an empty building to run their school from. We, as volunteers, hope to bring fun and engaging education to the young future of India. The statistics on Indian education are not optimistic with levels of illiteracy being as high as 25% and 40% of children not completing primary school education.

SUAS aims for long term results so not only do we teach the young generations but we also train the teachers to be able to teach basic necessities such as Maths and English. The volunteers interact with the general community also to help them create sustainable plans for a brighter future.
If you would like to hear more about the program please don't hesitate to visit http://www.suas.ie/india.

In order to participate in the program, each volunteer is asked to fundraise €3,000. I am paying for my flights directly from my own bank account so the fundraised money will not be spent benefiting me or other volunteers. When we arrive we will stay in homes with local families and a small contribution of the funds raised will go towards paying our hosts a nightly rent for their hospitality. Other expenses include supplies donated to the school to last them year round until the following summer when more volunteers arrive.