John Foster Charitable Trust
Gilmerton Primary School has, for many years, been involed in collecting money for the John Foster Charitable Trust.This charity runs homes and schools for many children in India.
These pages will give some history of this charity and tell of its present activities.
These articles have been uploaded by Primary 7 children from letters recieved from the Goodwill Village.
~ History ~
The Goodwill Village was founded in 1963 by John Foster, an ex-schoolteacher from Stockton.
~ The Story Of Goodwill ~The first Goodwill Project began in 1974 after John and Pamela Foster had gone to india with the intention of giving a couple of years useful service to uplift some of the most needy and destitute children in the Third World. Now Goodwill Children's Village and Homes are thriving communities of girls and boys who once knew the real meaning of grinding poverty, the like of which would appal people in the Western World. The projects are in the charge of capable and dedicated Indian staff who play major roles in welfare and administration; they are piloted by the Founder himself who in turn is ably assisted by a Managing Committee of Goodwill's own Registered Society in India.
Since those early days, Goodwill's magnificent work had been made possible only through the generous support of countless schools, churches, organisations and kind-hearted individuals in several counries. In a very real sense this thing called Goodwill is a direct outcome of a whole army of 'Friends of Goodwill' whose continuing support is a sure guarantee of the development and consolidation of the work.In recent years such support has made possible the establishing of a Goodwill Home in Bapatla, Andhra Pradesh, for destitute children who previously eked out a sad and hungry existence alongside the railway line as well as ensuring the development of the main Goodwill Village which is situated at Thandigudi, Tamil Nadu, and now houses up to 200 childen and staff.
Thanks to the army of supporters we have also been able to inaugurate and extend a carefully supervised scheme whereby some children from destitute families are enabled to stay in their parental home and attend local schools with financial support from the Goodwill Trust.Although registered with the Charities Commission, the Goodwill Project is not a large-scale charity. It follows, then, that there is no elaborate administrative bureaucracy and, apart from a part-time co-ordinator, the bulk of the work is done by folunteers. All the Trustees and Management Committee give their time and skill entirely without payment.
Brian Thorne
(Chairman Goodwill Children's Village Trust)
*Extract from a Newsletter.
*Harvest 1996*Yes, we now have 800 children in the care of Goodwill and they take some feeding, especially when there are food shortages.
The drought has meant that many commodities are in short supply or even unobtainable. And all food prices have risen substantially. Rice is up 18% in price, vegetable 35% and eggs 40%. Fruit, meat and pulses have all risen by more than 20%.
