Wannakam!

'Wannakam' to all the primary schools in Cambridgeshire and North West Norfolk! Wannakam is the Tamil word to say 'welcome'. It is accompanied by the traditional Indian greeting of placing your hands together and bowing gently to the person you are greeting. (You may know this as the greeting "Namaste", which is its Hindi name.)

These twelve acts of collective worshipon the Church and life in South India help us to celebrate the fact that, in September 2011, we in this region had been linked to people in the Vellore district of India for twenty years. This link has been formed between the Cambridgeshire Ecumenical Council (a meeting of the church leaders of the different Christian denominations in our own area) and the Diocese of Vellore, which is a diocese of the Church of South India.

The Diocese of Vellore is situated South West of Chennai (Madras), it is mostly in the state of Tamil Nadu, although the northern section is in Andhra Pradesh. It is chiefly a rural area, and is quite flat, with ranges of hills at its edges. In the centre of the diocese is the town of Vellore itself, with an ancient fort, and very modern Christian Medical College and Hospital (founded by the famous medical missionary Ida Scudder, whose name you may recognise). The area is not a prosperous one, and Christians are both drawn from, and work amongst, some of the very poorest people.

There are a lot of photographs of life in the Diocese of Vellore available for you to use when taking these acts of collective worship - look on the photo pages of this part of the website.

We were constantly asked by our Indian friends to bring back their greetings to their link partners in England, so, on their behalf, please give the 'wannakam' greeting to the children with whom you share these assemblies. We hope that this material will also give your pupils the opportunity to learn much more about our shared world and Christian faith.

If you would like a school visit from one of the people who have been to Vellore then please contact Shirley Hall at the Diocesan Office, Barton Road, Ely, Cambs CR7 4DX, Tel; 01353-652712, or email shirley.hall@ely.anglican.org

Contents

• Introduction
• What a wonderful world
• Food!
• Water of Life
• All Creatures Great and Small
• Loaded Down!
• Rich and Poor
• What's the Time?
• Shepherds and Sheep
• A Family of Potters
• Garlands of joy and gladness
• Entertaining Angels
• A Spoonful of Sugar?