Back to School Appeal: Tackling Educational Inequality in India

Gwalior Children’s Society is one of the four carefully-selected charities to be featured in GlobalGiving UK’s Back to School Education Appeal, January-February 2013. Keval Bharadia from Gwalior has written an article (below) about the great work that is being done at the Snehalaya School.

You can donate directly to the appeal by following this link. You will can support the Appeal as a whole, or you can select Gwalior or one of the other featured charities. You can also donate by text from the UK: text GGEA13 £10 to 70070 to donate £10. You can change the value of donation if you wish.

When we heard that GlobalGiving had chosen Snehalaya School for their “Back to School Appeal” we were thrilled! We know that a huge number of applications were submitted to Global Giving for only 4 places. That ours was chosen above other, also very important, schooling projects around the developing world was a deep honour for us.

2 weeks into the appeal has seen us raise over £5,000. The appeal lasts until the end of February and so far we have benefited from GlobalGiving’s vast reach and generous donors. But we are in desperate need however to raise 10 times more than this by the end of the appeal.

Why do we need this? Because, our School, in India’s heartland, provides a vital link for thousands of young poor girls to lift themselves out of poverty, gain economic independence and sense of self-worth through education. There has been a lot of news and discussion recently about women in India since the death of the gang rape victim in December 2013. It has made India’s patriarchal society come under fierce criticism given the lack of compassion and action done by the Indian Government. We teach our girls, who all come from destitute and rural parts of Madhya Pradesh, India’s poor heartland, of their equal rights they have in Indian society despite the institutionalised patriarchy.

As Soutik Biswas, India’s BBC correspondence says, “clearly, many Indian women face threats to life at every stage – violence, inadequate healthcare, inequality, neglect, bad diet, lack of attention to personal health and well-being”* However, in India’s heartland, discrimination against women is worse where men can outnumber women 5 to 4 due to illegal abortions and baby killings because of “social values” according to Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister. In The ‘genocide’ of India’s daughters, Al Jazeera asks if the patriarchal mindset that runs across castes and class can be changed to prevent foeticide and infanticide. Watch the programme here.

We believe that by addressing inequality in education from an early age in women, they have more of a chance to manage the risks they are presented with. This includes enabling their economic, domestic, social and intellectual freedom through education.

We do hope you continue to be inspired by the work of our school and can donate towards the schooling of girls within India’s neglected and poor heartlands.

Thank you

Keval Bharadia
International Representative
Gwalior Children’s Society
keval@helpchildrenofindia.org

*http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20880438

Back to School Appeal: Making More than a Difference in Liberia

The More Than Me Foundation is one of our carefully-selected charity partners for the GlobalGiving UK Back to School Appeal, January/February 2013. More Than Me have written an article (below) about the great work they are doing in West Point, Liberia.

You can donate directly to the appeal by following this link. You will can support the Appeal as a whole, or you can select More Than Me or one of the other featured charities. You can also donate by text from the UK: text GGEA13 £10 to 70070 to donate £10. You can change the value of donation if you wish.

The More Than Me Foundation is so excited to be a part of GlobalGiving UK’s education month! We get girls, who are at a high risk of child-prostitution, off the streets and into school in one of the world’s most notorious slums in West Point, Liberia. With the help of awesome donors like you, we are expanding rapidly and will be opening our very own all-girls academy in 2013! The More Than Me Academy will enable us to increase our impact by affecting over 500 girls and indirectly thousands more. With its focus on teaching entrepreneurship, the school will empower these girls to be able to provide for themselves by becoming active participants in their local economy.

Each girl will be given uniforms, books, health-care, nutritious lunches, mentors, and a safe environment to reach her potential. Following the traditional school day, the girls will work with social workers and tutors, as well as attend vocational training workshops in activities such as sewing, baking, and jewelry-making. We are also so excited to be able to provide dance and photography for our students, which have never been introduced to the Liberian school system.

All of this would not be possible without you!

This December, we had an amazing month – some of the girls in Liberia learned how to use a laptop for the first time ever! More Than Me volunteer, Emma Reynolds, started computer lessons with a class of 10 girls, teaching them how to type, save documents, and use a mouse pad. They even had typing competitions in which the teachers were quite strict on making sure the girls used two hands and learned to touch-type from the start. Hawa, who is 12 years old, won the typing competitions every time with a speedy style of touch-typing. The girls were so eager to learn and absolutely loved working with the computer; every time they pressed the ‘on’ button and the laptop turned on, their eyes lit up with excitement. What’s next? Maybe learning how to use the Internet!

We can’t wait to see and experience huge growth in our students and organization over the upcoming year. We want to thank you for all of your support and generosity during the ‘Back to School’ campaign, as well as GlobalGiving UK for hosting it. We would never be able to reach as many girls without you!

Back to School Appeal, 2013: Changing lives through Education

Maranatha Care Children is one of our carefully-selected charities for the January/February 2012 Back to School Appeal on GlobalGiving UK. Maranatha’s Founder, Harrison Nash, has written here about some of the incredible work that the organisation is doing in South Africa.

You can donate directly to the appeal by following this link. You will can support the Appeal as a whole, or select one of our featured charities (like Maranatha!).

In 2001, just over 1.1 million pupils started Grade 1 in South Africa. Fast forward to 2012 and only 511152 of these pupils wrote their matric exams (Grade 11/12). And of these, only 377 829 pupils passed. Whilst the overall matric pass rate was the highest since the National Senior Certificate (NSC) system was introduced in 2008, much support is still needed from the beginning of a child’s school career upwards to ensure they have opportunities to really transform their future.

Our project remains about education. But such statistics simply provides the facts. The true meaning of our project is the inspirational stories that go behind all the work we are trying to achieve. As the project leader, I am also providing voluntary services to the centre as a social worker, working intensively to support our children overcome all the traumatic experiences they have experienced in their short lives.

Of course there is so much joy to my work. But there are also challenges which are the reality of my work out here. At the start of last year I began working with a young boy off the streets withdrawing from forced addiction to Class A drugs. Whilst on the streets he was also sexually abused by older guys trying to take advantage of him. When he came to the centre I had to stop him from killing himself and at one point even pull him back from throwing himself off the side of a car park…at just 12 years old.

So if I tell you what a STAR he is now and that we have helped him turn his life around, you’d understand my immense sense of pride – he was even top of his class! And now, with donations we receive, we can help him and many others who have endured so much in their lives, access to schools and educational support they need to TRIUMPH!

We are honored to be part of the “Back to School” campaign and please know that as a small charity EVERY donation we receive makes a massive difference to our work. I am beyond grateful for the support as making a true difference in the lives of these children is everything I am aiming for and just what they genuinely deserve…more than anything!

Harrison Nash

Project Leader / Charity Director

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Meet Esther!

Esther was 10 years old when she came to Turning Point in March 2011. Before then she had spent her time on the streets after dropping out of school because her father could not afford the school admission fees and uniform costs (Esther’s mother passed away in 2009, meaning she had to leave her school upcountry and move to live with her father in Nairobi). Esther did not like being idle at home and heard wanted to go back to school. She heard about Turning Point through some friends and brought herself to our compound to see if we could help her. We took her into our Transition Class, where she studied for 1 year catching up on the education she had missed while being out of school. In January 2012 we helped her to rejoin a local primary school by paying the admission fees and giving her school uniform. She is now 11 years old, enjoys school very much and has dreams of being a doctor when she grows up. During the school term time we don’t get to see much of Esther or other children that we have helped rejoin local primary schools so our holiday clubs are a great chance for us to catch up with these kids and check on how they’re finding school and studying. It also means Esther will not be sat at home bored and tempted to rejoin the streets or at risk of abuse while her father is out at work. Instead she can join in on a week of fun, games and laughter, fully entering the Christmas spirit!

 Christmas Holiday Clubs

Last week’s holiday clubs for our kids in class 1-4 (first four years of primary school) were a big success. Each day around 50 children showed up for a morning of games, arts and crafts and drama followed by a big lunch and afternoon movie. The kids were split into four teams and throughout the week teams were trying to score points by performing the best drama or winning games. Although the competition was tight, at the end of the week there was much excitement when green team were announced the clear winners. Lots of jumping in the air, smiles and clapping ensued!

This week we repeat the clubs, this time for our older children in classes 5-7.

I think the photographs are clear proof of the fun that was had last week. Without your support we would be unable to run these clubs and the children you see in these photos would be roaming the streets bored and at risk of abuse or joining gangs. It’s great to give these kids a little bit of Christmas cheer. Thank you for your help in doing that. Merry Christmas from us all here at Turning Point!

How can you help?

Donate!

Click here to donate online!

Click here to donate via Facebook!

Melel Xojobal are one of GlobalGiving UK’s featured charities for our Children’s Christmas Appeal

Here you can read about Julia, one of Melel’s beneficiaries

Donate to the Christmas Appeal Here!

Julia Santiz is an eleven year old who lives in the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, in the south east of Mexico. Her mother tongue is Tsotsil, a Mayan language, though she is now more fluent in Spanish. Julia has completed the fifth year of primary school, which she attends in the afternoons. Through Melel’s program, Julia receives a scholarship which covers the cost of school books, her uniform and charges for exams and other schooling costs.

This scholarship is all important because of her family’s economic circumstances. Her father is alcoholic and unemployed, so her mother is the family’s main breadwinner. The family lives in a single room, sharing a bathroom with three other families. Their furniture consists of a stove and gas tank, two beds made out of wooden boards, a table and some wooden chairs. The room has a window for ventilation, a concrete floor and walls and a tile roof. The family depends on the children’s work to eat – Julia earns money looking after other children when she is not at school. Her younger brother Luis works in the market selling snacks and popcorn from a tray.

For the last three years Julia has attended Melel’s “Learning Circles”. These activities complement children’s lessons in class, reinforce their confidence at school, and help them learn what their rights are. Julia says that taking part in Melel’s activities has helped her a lot with her school work, and her school teacher says that her reading ability has improved significantly in the last year.

Teaching children about their rights is central to Melel’s approach. It is very important in this part of Mexico where discrimination against Mayan people is common and often blocks their access to health or education services. It’s easier for families to be turned away at clinics if they don’t know that they have a right to be treated, or the ways that they can seek redress if they are refused help.

Julia has dysplasia of the hip, and as a result walks with a limp. This condition could have been corrected in early childhood, but Julia’s family had no way of obtaining the help she needed. This year Julia’s mother took out a loan to buy her orthopaedic shoes. Julia says that other children in school used to laugh at her saying that she walked like a duck and that “it used to make me sad, but now I have my shoes”.

How can you help?

Donate!

Click here to donate online!

Click here to donate via Facebook!