Adam's Trip to Tamil Nadu for SOTE

Last December, Adam Dickens travelled to Tamil Nadu to visit SOTE's partners and projects. Through the course of this trip, Adam took over a 1000 photos and gifted these to SOTE. Adam also worked with SOTE on our new website and promotional materials. Here, Adam talks about his experience in India for SOTE. 

"In December 2016, I travelled to see SOTE’s work in Tamil Nadu with Emma Turner, who was there to collect the stories to accompany my pictures.

We arrived at a pretty volatile time: 86% of the currency notes had just been declared as illegal tender by the Prime Minister and the banks were in chaos. The streets were filled with people queuing in hope of getting any of the money that was left. Also on the day we landed, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Jayalalitha died and then adding to this disruption, Cyclone Vardah was predicted to hit Chennai on the last day of our trip. There are always challenges when travelling, but this was pretty extreme!

One of my strongest memories is watching 1 million people line the streets of Chennai for the Chief Minister’s state funeral. Everywhere was shutting down around us to mourn however luckily we could still visit CRUSADE during this difficult time.

We worked closely with all of the new partners (CARE, CRUSADE and MASARD) visiting the people benefiting from the projects and listening to their fascinating life stories. By visiting individual projects, and meeting people face to face, we had the privilege of seeing the reality of what it is like to live in these communities. 

The generosity of the people we met through CARE, CRUSADE and MASARD, and their willingness to share their stories with us was incredibly humbling. All three partners have such a heart for change in the communities they are working in and I am so fortunate to be able to work alongside SOTE and help facilitate change with the tools I have. It is a joy to portray individuals’ stories to people back in the UK who care and want to support SOTE.

I’m looking forward to joining SOTE again next year to see the progress that has been made and of course to take more pictures!"