Almost Summer Newsletter 2026

In 2025, we received a great many soft toys. These were bagged up with crayons, colouring books and warm hats and given to the children.

Ritika, Malcom and Gina giving presents.

This year, we had two overlapping Trustees’ visits to India.

The first was from Jenny: My annual visit to the schools where our children are educated. Kalimpong was cold and wet, but my welcome by children, parents and teachers radiated warmth. Ritika, our Child Liaison Officer in Kalimpong came to the schools with me, as many parents don’t speak English. The children are all taught in two languages, with many understanding English, Napoli and Hindi.

I also met up with past RTL pupils, all eager to show how well they were doing since leaving Kindergarten. Attending a school prizegiving where our children represent 1% of the pupils, they received more than 1% of the prizes. All our children leave our care at 5 years old, able to write in cursive script and do basic maths.

Paramount, the largest school, let us use their hall for a party. All the schools’ children, teachers and parents attended. Most children and several parents entertained us before 4 teachers dressed as elves helped Des and Brian, dressed as 2 Father Christmases, to hand out a bag of gifts to all our children. The party ended with the children going out into the playground for their favourite dish of momos.

Thus ended a successful visit. I look forward to seeing their progress next year.

Des: ChiChi & I visited Kalimpong in March and met up with Brian, our Founder, and Jenny (at our own expense as all Trustees do). Brian took the toys in his luggage and, with the help of Gina and Malcolm arrived in the Himalayan foothills within a couple of days of leaving. That made it sound easy! In reality, Brian is now 89, so it was quite an adventure, and then to complicate things, they got stuck on the mountain road due to some tornadoes coming through with trees literally falling around them! They had to take refuge in a roadside temple and hope for the best. A few hours later, people arrived with chain saws, and the road was opened again for traffic. A week later, when ChiChi and I arrived, the aftermath was clear to see. It must have been quite an experience for them!

Here we are in the mountains’ clouds with the principals of the schools we work with.

We did have a wonderful late Christmas party on Palm Sunday with the children, who didn’t notice it wasn’t December. Brian and I were dual Santas, but I will save them for our Christmas newsletter later in the year because we all know it isn’t Christmas at the moment. Don’t tell the children!

You can find more information on our schools (Paramount, North Point, Pioneer and Bright Life) here.

If you would like to join us on a future visit to Kalimpong, or indeed to visit solo, please contact any of our Trustees, and we can help you arrange everything, plus recommend a tour route & car & driver, a tour company in Rajasthan either before or after visiting.

Improving outcomes for our children

Nearly all our Girls graduate into St Philomena Girls School. They have to pass entrance exams, and they are passing with flying colours! Once they are there, they stay in education. ChiChi, Jenny & I met with Mother Superior to thank her for their missionary work there. They have 2600 girls in education, of which over a hundred are orphans. And now 26 of them are from Room To Learn! A number which is growing rapidly every year. Our work in Kalimpong with the very poorest aligns closely with The Sisters’ mission, which began in 1926.

Our boys have a bigger challenge. We met with the principal of a very good government-funded boys’ school to find out why our boys struggle to get places there. We came away with some very helpful information, which we are discussing with the principals of our four schools. It turns out few of them are old enough when they graduate from us; it is age, not academic achievement!

100 children!

We are close to achieving our 100 children in preschool education target.

It costs less than £200 per child per year to give Below Poverty Line (BPL) children a much-needed step up into education, where otherwise they would fall by the wayside. This is much less than many other charities!

However, this exceeds our annual income through donations, and we will not be able to maintain this without further regular donations.

I am working with our new Chairman, Chris Hall, to remedy this. We have set up a small ‘task force’ from our trustees and are trying to figure out ways of reaching out to potential donors. If you know anyone who would be interested, please contact me (WhatsApp +447811175173) or Brian (01993775479 / +447460353156) or any of our Trustees by email or phone.

Thank you to everyone who is a current donor! For those who are not……

Could you donate £18/month to lift a child out of poverty and into education, or add RTL to your Will? Or both?

We have an easy way of setting up monthly giving, should you wish to, and there is a section on gifting through Wills; 2025 saw two supporters include Room to Learn in their Will.

Garden Party 2026

This year’s Garden Party will be on Saturday, 8th August, starting 12:00

Please also share this newsletter with those whom you think might be interested in joining the Room To Learn community. All of this work is only possible because of YOU, our amazing and growing community of supporters!

Des, ChiChi, & Brian Mills

Thank you for your support. Please invite others to join our community of people who ‘give love away’