JENNY GIVES A YEAR TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD

JOEL RITCHIE

Jenny Milligan is off to continue an eight-year crusade to help disadvantaged kids in India, but don’t call her a martyr.

Jenny, the director of sport at Illawarra Sports High for more than a decade, will step down for a year’s long service leave to work at the Prema Vasam and Mithra orphanages, continuing a bi-annual ritual that goes back to 1999.

“I’m not going to be a martyr; there will be plenty of social activities,” she said. “Sometimes I work one-on-one with the students or run some of the sports programs. Sometimes I’ll just be painting the buildings or doing volunteer work.”

The 130-student Prema Vasam school is for able-bodied and disabled orphans. Mithra is devoted to the care of disabled or disowned children.

Jenny found out about the conditions in one of the poorest pockets of India when she travelled in 1999.

“I was just blown away (by the conditions),” she said.

Jenny took a small group of year 10 students to the orphanages in 2003; three more trips followed in the ensuing years with the upcoming visit her fifth.

“You feel so lucky coming from Australia. There are kids at Illawarra Sports who struggle but not compared to those kids over in India.

“I see kids who have little to no hope,” Jenny said. “To see those kids compete for places in education, that’s what it is all about.”