A Visit to Dornakal

Over half-term, one of our Classics teachers Mrs Fayter, travelled to India on a Gloucester Diocese visit, which included a visit to our partner school, the DDEM School in Dornakal. Here is Mrs Fayter's report on her trip:

I was part of a Diocesan trip to the partner Dioceses of Karnataka Central (Bengaluru) and the Diocese of Dornakal at half term.  I visited as part of the Gloucester Diocese International Links Team with Archdeacon Phil Andrew, Rev. Gary Gardy and Rev. David Bowers. We were accompanied by Rev. Abhijith Bhimala, who is the Dornakal Diocesan Link Officer for Gloucester.  I am the new Gloucester Diocesan link Officer for Dornakal.

I thought you might like to know about some of the places and people we visited. I will write about the Diocese of Dornakal first.

The infrastructure of India is improving all the time.  There is now a motorway bypassing Hyderabad which cuts down the travel to Dornakal from 8 hours to 4 and a half. There is house building, road building and metro construction everywhere.

At the time of our visit there were local elections so there were police checkpoints throughout the journey looking for money laundering and criminal activity.

Mon 23^rd October

We arrived in the evening at Dornakal and attended the start of the Women’s Fellowship Retreat.  This is an annual event lasting three days and over 2000 women attend the various events. Every woman who attends church is invited to become a member.  They provide a vital service to the local community – visiting the sick and dying, helping young families, and providing food to the very poor.  They meet three times each week to pray. The retreat was started by young men from the Degree College performing a traditional stick dance.

Tues 24^th October

On the first full day of our visit, we were joined by Rev. Abhijith Bhimala who is the Dornakal Diocesan Link Officer for Gloucester. He took us to Khammam where we visited a hospital run by the Church of South India and St Mary’s English Medium School.  Khammam is a large city of around 500,000 inhabitants about 40 miles from Dornakal. St Mary’s hospital is a general hospital but following Covid it has largely been underused as a place for surgery and is becoming more a centre for primary care. New hospitals with better facilities are being built. These tend to focus on one area of medicine rather than being a general hospital.  St Mary’s hospital still offers a service to the very poor, who cannot afford to access the newer hospitals. It offers placements to young doctors.

We visited St Mary’s English Medium School in Khammam.  This is a fairly new school, formed in 2016 and now has classes from LKG to Class 5.  It has 133 pupils and a waiting list.  All the pupils are from very poor families. St Mary’s Church which is a very large church with 2000 people on its role supports the school and the Diocese of Gloucester has also helped to fund the building of new classrooms. The school has been given permission to have classes to Class 10 – equivalent of Year 11 and so it is looking to build another floor of classrooms. We visited the school on the last day of their Durga Puja festival holidays so unfortunately, we did not see any pupils, but the teachers were there to greet us. All the teachers are women.  This seems to be quite common as teachers in the Church Schools in Dornakal are not paid very well and well below the government schools’ teachers as they teach in accordance with their Christian vocation. They are all well qualified, many with Masters.

In the evening we visited the small rural school in Madripuram - St Bishop Azariah English Medium School.  This was founded two years ago and has classes from LKG (aged 4) to Class 2.  It has grown from an initial 20 to 60 pupils.  The pupils it caters for come from the tribal areas, including the forest.  The local government has given them permission to grow the school to Class 7 and then on to Class 10 if the demand is there.  At present the local church is helping to fund the school.  It is using the buildings that belonged to a former school which closed several years ago. The school is in good condition but lacks desks and many facilities. Rev. Praveen Kumar, who is the deputy Principal is very aspirational and spoke eloquently about his aims for the school.  I think he will succeed. 

Wednesday 25^th October

We travelled to Kothagudem to visit Rev. Abhijith’s present church, St Andrew’s which regularly has congregations above 2000. He has been at the Church for the last nine months. It is as you can imagine very vibrant and active in the local community. The church is very impressive. It is situated near the power station at Palwancha, which we also visited.  The power station is fossil fuelled. We met Mr Prabhakar Rao, the chief engineer, who showed us around with his daughter, Jacinth. It was an incredible experience.  We were then given lunch in his home.  The power plant provides houses for all its workers; reminding us of the villages of Bournville or Port Sunlight, built originally for their workers.  The highlight of the morning visit was when Jacinth, aged 13 sang two choruses for us. She would like to be a singer of Christian music in the future.

From the power station we went on to the mining area and visited the open cast mines.  The open cast mines are not operational at present but there are still underground mines. From there we visited St Paul’s Church and St Paul’s Girls’ Hostel where we were treated to an evening of dance and song. They treated us to the traditional stick dance of the area. The welcome we received everywhere we went was fantastic.

The churches in Kothagudem support the schools and hostels.  They are very well run with qualified staff and safe guarding policies in place. The boarding hostel provides accommodation for girls aged 6 to 21.  The older girls continue to stay in the hostel to finish their higher education studies. Some will go on to become nurses, teachers, engineers, accountants etc.

Day 4 Thursday 26^th October

The day was spent in Dornakal. It was the first day back after the Durga Festival Holidays and not all the children had returned to school. I was invited to the Devotions in the Cathedral for the hostel children followed by breakfast in the DDEM School Boys’ hostel of idli and chutney. Idli is made of rice flour and dal with a chutney sauce – more of a creamy spicy sauce rather than the chutney we have, which is called pickles in Dornakal. The hostel is in excellent condition and has recently been restored and repainted. Here we met Santhosh who is the lead student at the DDEM High School and at the Boys’ hostel.  He served the boys’ breakfast.

It was interesting to read the timetable for the school day for a child who boards. The day begins at about 6.00, followed by daily devotions in the Cathedral at 7.00, then breakfast.  School from 9.00 to 4.00 with an hour for lunch.  Hostel students return to the hostel for lunch, usually rice and vegetables with fruit as dessert. From 4.00 to 5.00 they have snacks and free time to pay games.  Then there is homework until 6.30 followed by the evening meal – usually rice sambar or curry. They eat chicken every other day. After the meal there are evening devotions in the Cathedral before going to bed.

We spent the morning in the DDEM School. We had conversations with many of the children who are sponsored by The King’s Community. Some had not yet returned from the Durga Puja festival holiday.  Some of the tribal children who attend the school will have extra days with their families as they live far away from the school.  Some will stay on to the end of the next festival, Diwali before returning to school. It was good to meet the pupils, who are all thriving. The school is in very good condition, and it was wonderful to see the bore well in action and the garden shelter.  The school is really improving and that is in part due to the kindness of King’s.

Day 4 Thursday 26^th October cont:

In the afternoon we visited the Lionel Shriver School for the Deaf.  The school and its hostel had been renovated and repainted.  The gardens at the Deaf School were looking very green and the DDEM School had planted trees and shrubs; it also had a new garden shelter and a bore well. We had an interesting session in the School for the Deaf where we had a question-and-answer time and were asked more challenging questions – for example – what was the provision for education for deaf pupils in the UK? I mentioned how Rose Ayling -Ellis had won Strictly Come Dancing last year and immediately the girls stood up and began a silent dance.

One of the DDEM pupils invited Penny Fayter to her home.  Reethu aged 15 lives with her grandparents.  Her grandfather used to be the school cook. 

The evening finished with a farewell in the Cathedral with the DDEM School and School for the Deaf pupils singing for us. We were garlanded and wrapped in shawls in the traditional way of saying goodbye.

I met some of the teachers and pupils who had been to King’s in the past.  Sudeepya is studying to be a Science teacher, Mahesh is doing Agricultural Science, and Jyothsna is teaching and is married with three children.  It was a fantastic visit. 

If you would like to know more or would like to contribute to the Dornakal fund please contact Penny Fayter – [email protected]