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 ponsor A Child
By Shobana Narasimhan, Asha Silicon Valley
"I will be a computer engineer in the future. I love programming, designing and creating web pages."
Words of a Silicon Valley whiz kid? Think again. These are the words of 15-year-old K. Sundarapandiyan, whose father cleans trucks for a living. His family cannot afford to pay school fees. To help Sundarapandiyan realize his dreams, he is supported by a sponsor through Asha Silicon Valley's Support-A-Child (SAC) program.
Asha SV launched its SAC program in 2002. Today, it benefits over 260 children with the support of sponsors from all over the world. SAC's mission is to engage sponsors directly in the welfare of children. Through regular progress updates and pictures, a sponsor can truly witness the impact of their donation. Many sponsors have found it rewarding to correspond directly with their child. Some have even visited the child in India.
Projects are carefully selected based on their goals, track record and past involvement with Asha. Each of Asha SV's four SAC projects has a distinct profile:
- The Sowbhagya Trust supports children in the coastal town of Neelankarai, near Chennai. The children attend formal school and most aspire to go on to higher education.
- The Center for Development of Disadvantage People (CDDP), also near Chennai, serves farmers and landless agricultural laborers. Many of the children work during the day and attend non-formal education centers in the evening. Others have made the transition to regular government schools.
- The Ankur project in Pune sends children raised in the urban slums of Pune to the Ankur school, where they find a welcoming environment to learn and grow.
- The National Association for the Blind (NAB) in Valsad, Gujarat, works with visually impaired children and youth, providing housing, formal education and vocational training.
Through SAC, over US$40,000 has been raised and disbursed to date to these projects. With the addition of the NAB and Ankur projects, the program expects to raise over US$50,000 in 2004. The funds are used to support educational expenses, healthcare, nutrition and other basic necessities. In 2003, the Higher Education fund was created to support college education fees.
As with every other Asha initiative, this program is sustained by a hard-working volunteer team. The team has been busy expanding the program, developing IT infrastructure and researching educational materials to send to the children. The focus right now is on finding sponsors for the children of NAB. Over 50 children still need sponsors. Another major goal for 2004 is to provide richer updates to the sponsors, in the form of online reports, workbooks and other communication.
As a volunteer, I personally find it immensely satisfying to directly get an insight into each and every child in our projects. A new volunteer once remarked to me that the volunteer team was like a cheering squad for the kids! And it is true that we feel genuine pride when a SAC-supported girl joins an engineering college, when children make the leap from non-formal learning centers to government schools, and when a child writes that his goal is to start a trust to help other children from poor families get an education.
We hope to see the SAC program grow to embrace many more underprivileged children in projects across India in the years to come. To achieve this goal, we need the cooperation of people like you who are equally passionate about the cause of education. To read more about children like Sundarapandiyan visit the SAC website at www.ashanet.org/siliconvalley/sac and be part of this educational revolution one child at a time. Support a Child. Be part of the dreams of a child!
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students perform at the Sowbhagya School
student antics at the Sowbhagya School
children at the CDDP Asha School in Nedumbaram
a CDDP classroom in Nedumbaram
the outdoor art gallery and blackboard at the Ankur School
play-time at the Ankur School
a student at NAB
construction of the NAB School
students gathered at the new NAB resource room
learning music at NAB
sports at NAB |
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