FORWORD aims to tackle one of India's most challenging socio-economic problems - the oppression of under-privileged members of society - through evening schools designed primarily for Dalit children. The project intends to develop 12 schools each, with 30 students in Tambaram , close to Chennai, TamilNadu. Such evening schools, it is hoped, will complement a child's daytime primary education. The purpose of this organization is to empower dalit children; provide them opportunities to bring out their talents; and address issues such as poverty, injustice, and oppression in the name of caste and gender. FORWORD was formed in 1991 by M.Shiamalababy and others who believe that social injustice, inequality, social insecurity for women and political corruption leads to hunger, unequal distribution of resources, sickness and suffering amongst the majority while the minority enjoys the affluence. Education of the marginalized is the only way to social transformation, they believe.

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Budget

Status

$11096 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 179
0	$5000	$10000

Gramya has been active in UP's most backward taluka, Naugarh (district Chandholi) since 1996. Naugarh district was divided into 10 villages to improve its social, economic and educational situation. The main focus of the organization is related to human rights, violence against women, and child development. The Mooltaya adivasi tribe live in this mountainous region. In this economically, socially and politically backward tribe the literacy rate is 22%. Female literacy is only 8%. Poverty and hunger are common in this Dalit and tribal community where girls outnumber boys. Women face many social, political and economic problems and there is only one Government-run school which is very far from the village. Gramya Sansthan actively participates in helping the 10 villages of Naughad taluka by running a Bal Kendra for children who do not go to school, by promoting women's rights and by organizing group activities involving both men and women of the tribe.

Number of Staff : 16 ( 12 Teachers + 4 staff )

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Budget

Status

$9662 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 108
0	$4000	$8000

Jeevika is an NGO based in Karnataka dealing with issues relating to bonded labour.
An estimated 21% of bonded labour in Karnataka are children below the age of 18. Deprived of basic education, they are forced to accompany their parents to work on the lands of the landlord in order to pay-off debts.

"Bonded labour" is a forced labour where the person is bound by the terms of debt taken on by the previous generation from the landlord. Despite being outlawed by the Indian Parliament, the practice still prevails in large parts of rural India due to extreme poverty, illiteracy and discrimination against the lowest castes. Such people are forced to work under sub-human conditions: long working hours with neither pay nor holidays. Landlords and middleman also tend to manipulate the debt so that it never diminishes and is, instead, continued.

Jeevika conducts awareness campaigns across villages in Karnataka, petitioning local administrators (and police) to intervene and remedy situations. The Back to School Programme started by Jeevika, believes that every child below 14 is entitled to free education. This 'bridge' programme focuses on children who do not go to school or have dropped out. Jeevika's activists ensure that these children are placed in government schools at the appropriate level

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Budget

Status

$7840 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 83
$0	$9250	$18500

Mahila Swarojgar Samiti works with women's groups in villages in order to set up self-help groups and income augmentation programs. The aim of the project is to empower women to take control of their lives. MSS also runs education centers for pre-school children in the villages of Todapur, Chakrapanpur, and Harfos in rural Uttar Pradesh. The purpose of MSS is to establish a linkage between the three project elements - the school, the vocational training and the self-help group (SHG). This is with the vision that these elements can become self-sufficient (in terms of funding) and economically inter-linked. This should be facilitated by the fact that parents of most children attending the MSS school are involved in the vocational centre or SHG. Another goal is to ensure that children are eventually enrolled into government schools due to the limitations of delivering full-time teaching through  centers. The role of the centre is to prepare the children for formal schooling. MSS also works with parents in order to make them appreciate the importance of school.

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Budget

Status

$7147 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 84
0	$12798	$25597

Natpurva is about 70 km from Lucknow. The people here are of the Nat caste, and their main profession is prostitution. This business - with the women as 'head' of the family, has been continuing for the past 300 years as the only 'profession'. Two brothers from the village - Neelkamal and Guddu - who spent time at the Asha Ashram in Lalpur, realized the implications of prostitution and decided to do something.  A primary school is being run by Asha where Neelkamal and two others teach. They are also involved in the possible rehabilitation of the sex-workers. Asha provides teacher's salaries and works to ensure a self-sustainable quality of education is maintained. The two youths both been involved with other Asha projects (Lalpur, Varanasi), and then decided to work to improve the situation of their village. Neelkamal and Guddu would like to bring other means of employment to the village, wanting to end 'prostitution'. At the same time, they are providing primary education to the children. Health awareness camps/workshops and deliberations self-employment of the women through alternative means is part of their process.

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 Budget

Status

$9975 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 111
0	$4272	$8545

NICE provides education, food and shelter to working children. NICE also caters to the needs of orphans and children of single parents. The school also looks into the health and career needs of these children. Currently NICE takes care of the needs of only boys. However, there are plans to start a residential school for girls in the near future.  The residential school provides free basic literacy and vocational training. NICE aims to motivate parents of working children by imparting vocational based training, eventually helping the children become entrepreneurs who will serve their communities. A free residential school, NICE also puts primary school dropouts through a 1-year bridge curriculum before starting high school education in CBSE curriculum. NICE wants to turn these children into rural entrepreneurs by imparting vocational training as well. NICE takes its responsibility to its donors very seriously, and is run extremely transparently. All its accounts are published on the Internet and Annual Reports are sent to all donors. http://www.nice-india.org 
 

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Budget

Status

$10524 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 117
0	$5900	$11800

Village children in Manipur drop out of school or do not go to school at all is because their parents want them to work and earn money. Besides, schools are far and getting to schools in neighbouring villages is difficult. Also, children who do not go to school will not tell / urge their parents to send them to school. That is how they end up being illiterate. SACSAS aims at providing quality education to underprivileged (low-income) children in Manipur; and nurturing children - upto the age of 8 - to have the habit of going to school so that they will ask their parents to send them to school once they come out from SACSAS Academy. The first unit of SACSAS Academy was opened on the 10th May 2003 at Yaoshulakpa (Leishoi) in Moirang, Manipur. Leishoi is a village without a school.  Village authorities had been trying to have at least an Anganwadi branch or any form of school from the state government, to no effort. Now there are four teachers  and 35 poor children and the villager's response has been overwhelming.

http://www.sacsas.org.

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 Budget

Status

$7036 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 86
0	$2700	$5400

Sandnya Sanwardhan Sanstha provides service to children who fall under 5 levels of retardedness - ranging from borderline retarded to profoundly retarded. Profoundly retarded children need 1-on-1 attention for day-to-day tasks (like brushing their teeth, eating, etc.). More than 13 children in SSS are profoundly-retarded. SSS provides a range of services to the children, depending on their level of mental handicap ness. These include: Special Education, Speech Therapy, Physio Therapy, Music Therapy, Parents and Sibling Training, Learning through cultural programs, Sports and yoga, Home-based training, Public Awareness, Vocational Training Rehabilitation, Parent Relief Center. Sandnya Sanwardhan Sanstha (SSS) is a research institute dedicated to the development and rehabilitation of mentally handicapped children. The uniqueness of this institute is that they provide individual attention depending on the specific circumstances of the child. SSS was started in 1993 in Nagpur, Maharashtra and has been dedicated in providing such service to about 82 children today.

www.sandnya.org

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Status

$11951 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 137
0	$11410	$22820

SIRAGU is a unit of Suyam Charitable Trust and a dream project. A free school was started for beggars and street children ( pavement dwellers and mendicants ). This school started with 34 children in June 2003 and formally inagurated by Honorable Shri. P.S. Ram Mohan Rao, Ex. Governor of Tamilnadu. Siragu was started with the objective of providing quality education to first generation learners. The school not only admits street children but also children from brick kilns and from groups who are economically deprived. This school has adopted Montessori method of education and other innovative and practical methods with an aim to provided world class education at local costs to the poorest of the poor.

www.siragu.org

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 Budget

Status

$8799 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 89
$0	$8430	$16860

The school - a quintessential Asha project, was conceived at the Asha Timbukto conference in 2003. It owes its origins to a few dedicated Asha individuals (Raj, Jags, Sahadev, Mani, Menon, Ajay and  Batra) who with the committed champion of tribal education - Mr. T.H.Joy, took up starting a school in the remote tribal village of Leingangching Village in Manipur. This area is hilly with poor agricultural prospects, compounded by tribal rivalries. Joy hails from here and is a success story of a tribal native who made his career in the city. The school with a few voluntary teachers was started in late 2003 with about 30 students. It is close to 13 villages serving tribes of all ethnicities. Asha raised a few funds to start a school building which was functional with constructed classrooms in March 2004. The efforts of incubation by Asha Stamford since 2003, and continued private donations by Asha individuals has resulted in the school growing to a fully functioning, enviable and much admired institution in that area. The school today supports 307 poor students across grades K-6, and 8 teachers including a Principal and Vice Principal. In addition, the children are provided with uniforms and participate in organized sports like football, volleyball, carrom etc. 
 

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Budget

Status

$9093 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 95
0	$6000	$12000

The Asha School run by WAYSSS began with the objective of getting child workers at the nearby quarry to go back to school. The coordinators for the project are Mr. P Sitaramaswamy, a social worker in the area, and Dr Prasanna Yashasvi, a doctor who pays regular visits to the village. Most villagers are poor Muslim farmers who are employed as daily wage-earners in the quarry. The school, which has 5 classes (from first to fifth) and 60 children, is a single room below the Masjid. Asha Berkeley supports the following aspects of the school: School Rent, Teachers' Salaries, Books for children and other supplies, Mid-day meal, Sewing Center for women, teacher salaries and sewing machines. 

Number of Staff: 4 (2 Teachers + 1 Vocational Trainer + 1 Ayah)

Number of people reached: 60

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Budget

Status

$7193 has been raised as of Monday, January 08, 2007 - 02:15AM PST
Number of Donations 87
0	$3500	$7000