India
This community development project in Kasibugga, Srikakulam, India encompasses a children’s home and a constructive community development program for the local community who have been impacted by poverty, social problems, and family breakdown, attributed to a lack of vocational skills training and limited access to quality education.
Due in part to family breakdown, there are as many as 350,000 unwanted street kids in the region. Mercy Mission Home endeavors to deal with this issue so that children on the street can continue to go to school, receive proper physical care, live normal lives, and have positive impacts on their community. Currently there are 22 street children in the program who are receiving proper care and education.
The community development program aims to increase employablity and encourage new small businesses. The program focuses on employment training and developing vocational skills within the community.
The health program provides both health awareness and education to the local community. Additionally, some bore wells have been built to ensure local access to clean drinking water.
India is the biggest democratic country in the world with more than 1.2 billion people. Many things have changed in India since its Independence 64 years ago but not Dalit’s lives who comprise nearly one quarter of India’s society, with population estimation of 300 million. Majority of the Dalits also called the “Untouchables,” “Outcastes,” and most recently “slumdogs,” are still in hopeless situation and no hope for the future.
Since August 2006, LIGHT Society has been working to give Hope and Promised Life to poor Dalit people in India. The main development activity has centred on education which has the power to change an individual, family and a society. LIGHT Society has started to build an English medium school for Dalit children to give them corporate level free quality education by qualified Dalit teachers with provision of clean water and medical care. Children will be taught life and agricultural skills, computer skills and English language. Girls will be given more opportunities to study as they are more neglected in Dalit families.
LIGHT is scheduled to finish the school building by end of May 2012 to start commencing classes in June 2012. More or less 400 children will be benefited and this will increase yearly.
This project takes care of ‘The Promised Land’, a complex of living units and school on 90 acres. It has a primary school and 3 hostels which started with 12 kids and has grown to house 2,000 children. Its objectives are to:
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Provide education, basic food, clothing, social developments and accommodation improvements. This will seek to give them life skills to assist with lifting them out of extreme poverty
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Provide sustenance funding for 700 boys in the Australian Turner Boys Hostel
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Provide additional teachers at the Graham Staines Memorial School which is a school with 1,300 students and an average class size of 60 students per teacher. The aim here is to reduce the class size and improve the education of the students.
The centre is located on the outskirts of a small village called Sevattur, a few kilometres outside the larger town of Tirupattur. Disadvantaged people such as the elderly, widows and orphans struggle to survive on a day to day basis. Its objectives are:
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To enable the children to receive education and have a purpose for life
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To help orphans and widows become socially and economically self reliant
Project Manager: Lincoln Haynes
The New Life India project is an amazing project which seeks to be fully self sustainable. The project will provide jobs for the underprivileged in the community and obtain an income to fund care and education for disadvantaged and orphan children.
SIEM have established ‘MERCI Children's Home’ in Dec '06 and currently have 22 children being cared for with another 40 children waiting to be taken into a second Merci Home. We are rescuing orphans from the abuse of child labour.
Most of these children are orphans from surrounding rural remote villages. These orphans may only be around 4-12yrs old but have known huge responsibility never meant to be given to children. They go to work to support themselves and their siblings. They are considered a nuisance and have no hope of ever gaining an education.
SJCM Centre is located in Cuddalore, a coastal city in Southern India which was devastated by 2004 Asian Tsunami. The Centre operates as an orphanage, housing 115 children and a school of approximately 400 children which caters for preschool through to matriculation. The project involves the purchase of land to expand the orphanage and to provide an area for crops, hens and cows for food production.
There are Centres in Kerala, Goa, Tamil Nadu and the projects include J315.J316, J324 and others. Essentialy each project is for the Dalits and Other Backwards Castes.
Dalits are systematically abused. Dalits and Other Backward Castes (OBC) are poor, deprived and socially backward. Their most basic needs of food, shelter, and safety are not fulfilled. They also cannot access decent education and employment. The systematic denial of their basic human rights results in a lack of education, food, healthcare, and economic opportunity, thereby keeping Dalits in perpetual bondage to the upper castes.
Gospel for Asia (GFA) has long recognised the need to reach these people groups with love and compassion, and assist them in seeing the fulfilment of their desires for freedom of religious choice, social justice, and upliftment from their oppression be realised. Gospel for Asia plans to carry out this work by using skilled national workers who have undertaken a three year training course at one of the 54 training facilities GFA has throughout India and neighbouring countries. They will focus on the disadvantaged or hard-to-reach groups such as those residing in the rural areas, slums and leper colonies.
The aim of the project is to build the capacity of the poor in the local community to sustain, determine and fund their own future. It will therefore address their immediate needs of:
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access to business start up capital
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business training,
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skills development and mentorship;
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life skills training;
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community development;
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advocacy for the poor; and
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anti-corruption education to business, government and community.
As at August 2009 there were 1,400 women in the program.
Jacob's Well hopes to break the poverty cycle by sinking fresh water wells in villages, establishing health and resource centres and providing life changing education for children from tribal villages and the slums.
www.jacobswell.org.au
Located on 5 acres of land in Errampatti Village, 20km northwest of Madurai, SHALOM HOME will provide facilities for the care of up to 50 orphaned or at risk children from nearby slum and village areas. Construction of Stage One, to accommodate the current group of 12 boys, commenced in January 2009. Stage One consists of a multi-purpose building for sleeping, dining and after school studies plus kitchen and bathroom buildings. Other project activities include planting crops and establishing dairy farming activities to generate income to help cover the home’s running costs. SHALOM HOME will also provide a venue for health education and training programs to assist people from the surrounding village areas.
Australia Project Partners – Geoff and Karen Hales
Indian Project Partners - World Kingdom Fresh Fire Ministries
This project seeks to provide support for children and families at risk aiming to assist them in acquiring the necessary skills to become self reliant and productive members of the community.
A small project to relieve poverty by providing education to promising young adults.
Heart for India works in several Provinces and is involved in a number of activities including:
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Rescue of at risk children
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Schools and children’s homes,
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Relief from natural disasters,
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Assisting people to attain a better lifestyle e.g. purchasing a micro business such as cycle rickshaw.
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Other ventures include purchasing sewing machines for tailoring.
Project Manager: Heather Sell/Graham Hill
This project of hostel and school in India is currently in the process of building a 500 bed girls hostel with fully integrated classrooms starting from grade 1 through to grade 12. The girls come from an ethnic tribal group that view girls as a curse on the family, particularly if the girl happens to be the first-born. They have no future in their social system, and many are still being killed at birth. The next option for the girls is to be sold into slavery. There is an excellent team of dedicated teachers who train the girls in all facets of life.
Project Manager: New Life Christian Church-Craig Tomkinson
The aim of this community development project will be: To provide a home for up to 20 orphan/semi orphan children or children whose parents are invalid or have a terminal sickness. This could be long or short term care and will depend on the family circumstances. These children will be educated in practical trades and skills to influence and contribute to the development of their own communities.
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Home for aged care up to 10 men and women.
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Medical centres with qualified nursing sisters to service and educate the whole village,
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To provide water to the village people through our bore as they have limited supply.
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Vegetation and farming education and provide resources to help it become self sustainable.
