A group of students from Joyce Frankland Academy are all set to visit the Indian Himalayas this summer to undertake a building project which will change the lives of villagers.
The twelve pupils from the Newport school will leave in July for the Spiti Valley in Northern India, which is close to the Tibetan border, to build a solar heated bath house.
The bath house will provide hot water for the village centrally and reduce the need to import expensive wood and fuel into the valley.
The team of students will be away for 25 days and will be working at high altitude during the building process.
In summer 2014, the school took pupils to build a greenhouse in the valley, which enabled villagers to grow their own fresh vegetables all year round.
Caroline Papier, school administrator and trip organiser, said: “As a team, we will build the bath house from locally sourced building materials, and all the bricks will be hand made. The solar panels will be the greatest expense.
“The work will be physically very hard and we will also have to deal with the effects of working at altitude. I saw convincing proof in 2014 that we really can make a difference to the lives of people of the Spiti valley.”
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