BAA Fulcrum Challenge 2006
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While millions of us enjoy flying every year there is a noisy downside for the people who live or work near to airports.
BAA Fulcrum Challenge 2006
Twenty six students from schools in the Hounslow, Uxbridge and Isleworth areas arrived back in Heathrow on Friday 3 November 2006 with a vast range of amazing stories, photos and memories from the experience of a lifetime – two weeks developing their leadership potential whilst building an orphanage in one of the poorest corners of India.
The year 13 students – aged 17 and 18 – took part in the Fulcrum Challenge, a nine-month leadership programme culminating in the ‘overseas challenge’ helping local people build an orphanage for 80 children in Zainibad, India. In addition to a £30,000 investment from the BAA Communities Trust, the participants each raised £2,000 through activities such as selling ice cream to classmates, packing bags at Marks & Spencer and organising a football match between an Arsenal ex-pro and Celebrity XI and the Heathrow Airport Fire Service.
Three representatives from BAA Heathrow acted as mentors to the students, who were working towards an ASDAN Certificate in Personal Effectiveness which will help them with university applications.
During the visit, the students worked seven hours a day in 40°C heat alongside Indian builders or ‘mistries’ – knocking down walls and digging five-foot trenches providing foundations for the orphanage. They bought tools and materials from a local market. Each day two students would lead the group and their progress would be reviewed in a group session in the evening.
One objective of the challenge was to give the participants a taste of life in India, and the group spent a day with the Ribari tribe – a nomadic people who herd camels and cattle. They also got to experience different cultures by spending Eid and Diwali visiting local homes. The group also spent time in the Indian desert sleeping under the stars.
The students also took second hand clothing and toys donated by friends, family and BAA workers which they gave to the children of the salt workers in the Rann of Katchh. The workers live in abject poverty barely making an existence by extracting salt from the desert plains.
BAA have rewarded the three students who showed the most leadership potential with tickets for a return trip to India to attend the opening ceremony of the orphanage in February 2007.
