Manya's blog

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 Hello! Welcome to my new blog!

Do you remember me? Fundraising for homes for HIV orphans? Opening the Rainbow Home, and the Boys' Home for leprosy affected children, so that they could go to school like normal children? The monthly newsletters? The trips to the beach and the zoo with the Prem Nivas children? Living with the children as teacher and 'auntie'.? And if your memories go further back, to your supporting me when I did my bike ride to raise funds for leprosy treatment in 1994, and went out to work in India after I retired.

It is a long time since I regularly wrote a blog. Tonight I have been looking back posts I wrote when I was volunteering for Brighter Future. I  was surprised that they were still on my computer. It was so nice to see the pictures of the children we gave a homes to, and the adults we were able to take into our hospice.

We started with 5 children and soon had three homes with 100 infected orphans. 

Some of the children are still in touch with me through free social media. They tell me about their jobs, their marriages and their children, now that there is treatment to prevent the unborn baby being infected with HIV.





I also had a look at the more recent Awaas blog, written with the senior citizens, in their home in the hills some 100 km. from Mumbai.  


My days at Awaas came to an end when it closed down in March 2025.





 Now, at the age of 88, I have had to come to terms with retirement . 

Having spent nearly 30 years, on and off, in India it is difficult to forget the people I knew and loved, and know that there are people still suffering today, from debilitating and stigmatizing illnesses, untreated through no fault of their own. 

My  'go to' fundraising method was doing  sponsored cycle rides - 

  • "A Thousand Miles Around the Channel", 
  • "Granny Gets on her Bike Again",  
  • "Octogenarian on a Bike" 

and the very first one, when I was a novice cyclist, described by a colleague as ....

“Fantastic achievement! 2000-year-old local government worker tackles 56 miles on a Mountain Bike!” 

In an attempt to raise funds, for the treatment of leprosy and elephantiasis, I have written a book about that first ride,  and I am going to submit it to Amazon for publishing!.



People who have had a preview of it have been interested, amazed and complimentary!

Wish me luck! I have had to teach myself book formatting, cover design and many other technicalities. Being long in the tooth, I have to read the instructions over and over again, and hope that it sticks in my mind!

I'll let you know if it is published, hopefully at the beginning of October 2025! 

Manya

pmanya.norris@gmail.com

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