With the opening of our new building with its excellent infrastructure, the education officer of the government of Sonbhadra asked in October 2019 whether we could offer a school program for children from poor regions. What are the concrete advantages of running a school in our Center versus a public primary school?

Without funding from NGOs from abroad there would be no schools in Upper Dolpo. School lessons in winter have not existed for a long time and are a matter close to Rinpoche Dolpo Tulku’s heart. We have complied with this request and have been funding the winter school in Saldang since 2016 (80 children) and in Nyisal since 2019 (35 children). As of 2021 we support a summer school in Lhuri (35 students), for a total of 150 children. Why are we doing this and what impact does it have on children and adults in the mountainous villages?

With the renovation of the school complex of the Amuro / Mgbom Primary and Secondary School in Ebnoy State, we want to enable the children to attend school in a proper way. This is currently not possible due to the current infrastructure: too large classrooms with several classes, too much heat due to poor insulation and no ventilation, several buildings are currently unusable because they are badly dilapidated. What are the long-term benefits for the students?

It is said that knowledge is power and education is the key to success. With a better education, the children are ready to compete in the labor market in Nigeria and can find employment anywhere in the world.

“ChildLine Service” in India means in most cases a clearly defined program of the ChildLine India Foundation , which reports to the Ministry of Child and Women’s Development. For each district and at special “hot spots”, a license is granted to an organization that is allowed to perform this service. Our partner organization Creation India Society has received the license for the Sonbhadra district with its 2.5 million inhabitants and is allowed to execute the “ChildLine service” in accordance with the requirements. What does that mean?

ChildLine services offer a 24/7 hotline with rehabilitation activities and advice for the following emergency situations:

• missing children.
• “found infants”.
• neglected children.

Several qualified employees will work for this program.

Vocational Training (“Skill Program”) is one of the very big initiatives in India, especially for rural areas. In order to be able to offer training, you need licenses from the Indian government or the associated organizations such as “National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC)” and “National Small Industry Corporation (NSIC)”. We have the licenses for Sonbhadra. This enables us to offer education and training packages from a single source , which makes us “the” attractive social facility in the entire region. What does that mean in detail?

In our Keswha Child Welfare Center we have classrooms and laboratories for more than 100 trainees . We have a license to train 720 apprentices per year. We start with the following training modules:

• Beauty: We provide classrooms and a ‘lab’ for up to 50 people in parallel for beauty training.
• Tailoring: We have a classroom and ‘lab’ for up to 50 people working in fashion and tailoring.
• Computer: We provide a room with 10 computers. We have the license for various training modules.

Care and support for disabled people is in close cooperation with the chief disability officer of the Sonbhadra district, from whom we also received the license for our work. People with disabilities in India are often dependent on themselves . The causes of disabilities are mostly poverty and poor health care. Many disabilities would be avoidable if expectant mothers and their infants received better care and nutrition. Education and advice are very important elements.

We conduct analyzes and surveys in the villages and organize camps and workshops either in our center or in the villages. Disabled people in India often live excluded from society.

Women Empowerment is our offer for disadvantaged women. There is this need because of the dominance of men and discrimination against women. Women are targeted by various types of violence and discriminatory practices. This is still a challenge in the area in which we operate. The drivers of our actions are to increase the self-esteem of women, their right to make their own decisions, the possibility to regulate their own lives and to achieve equality.

We are committed to advising women on questions of family planning, equality, the possibility of finding work and thus reducing unpaid work . Empowerment of women is about granting them full human rights. This is what we offer women in the KCWC:

The “Outreach Program” is a social program for the rural population. In Sonbhadra, a large number of residents in 1,441 villages live in poverty. These people have limited or no education and are not trained to ask for help. Over the years, we will cooperate with the respective village mayor (Gram Panchayat) We will to investigate the situation in the families in all the villages and then determine how people can best be supported in certain areas of their daily life.

We support with social, legal and medical problems. We advise drug-addicted children and adolescents, want to win parents over, send their children to school, enable them to get an education, and advise them on family planning.