Send a Child in India to School for a Year

July 16, 2009

Dear Friend,

Greetings from Seva Mandir!

Thank you very much for your continuing support. It is encouraging to see all of our friends and well wishers to support children’s education. I was reading somewhere in our annual reports of last year that about 30% 6-14 years of children in the areas where Seva Mandir works are out of school. It is very heartbreaking. The census of 2001 shows that the literacy rates of Udaipur is merely 59%.

What education means in today’s time, we all know but there are certain areas in the world where children do not have access to quality education for various reasons. Poverty, social constraints, physical access and quality of services are some of the reasons.

Recently, our first Seasonal Residential Learning Camp finished. The camp is another Education effort of Seva Mandir for children who are deprived of education. The camps cater to working children between 7-15 years old age group. Often these children have either never been to schools or have dropped out at a very early stage due to non-comprehension or bad experience in the schools.

I have come across to an interesting piece of writing, written by a boy who has simply learnt how to express his feelings in writing. It is amazing to note that he learnt to write with comprehension only in 50 days. The teacher asked students to complete a story with the help of a picture and two introductory lines.

I am quoting here his (Vahta Ram) story. I hope you will enjoy reading what he has imagined in this story.

“Once upon there was a mango tree. There was one mango on it. A boy was also thinking of eating the mango. He was thinking of dropping the mango. A boy threw a stone and mango was dropped on the ground and a crow picked it up and flew away. The boy hit the crow with a stone and the crow crashed to the ground. A girl picked it and while she was washing her face and the mango sat on her plate. A squirrel picked it up and went to a tree and dropped it into a nest and the eggs of the crow were broken and little babies came out and started crying. The crow followed the squirrel and took away the mango from her. The mango fell down on an old man’s turban who was sitting down the tree. Two rabbits and two boys and the crow came to the old man. The girl took the mango away, so the crow and rabbits and squirrel were very sad. The girl ran away with the mango and everyone was very sad. So the boy and crow followed her to fight with her but she ate away the mango, all right!”

With such sparkling little progress, it enforces our faith in our work. And when we receive support for our programs from people like you it further help deepen our faith and increases the chances of bright future for these children.

Thank you for all your support and helping thousands of children’s education. We very much hope that we will be able to raise huge support in Alive and Learning Challenge too.

We would be very happy if you have any feedback or suggestions to share.

Thank you once again.

With warm regards,

Deepti deepti@sevamandir.org

July 15, 2009

Dear Friend,

Greetings from Seva Mandir!

First of all, a very big thank you for your continued support to our rural school project.

As you may all know Seva Mandir is participating in Alive & Learning Challenge this July starting from 15th. We are participating with your favorite project ‘Send a child in India to school’. If we raise £ 2000 until the 15th of August 2009 then this project will be a featured project on Global Giving home page. If we could raise the most donations, we will have a bonus prize of £ 1000. If we get most number of donors then we will have an additional £ 250. That means we have to raise a minimum of £ 2000.

This challenge will help us to reach out to more donors who wish to contribute towards children’s education. It will also allow us to spread awareness of education scenario in our region.

The literacy rate of our region is much lower about 59% but together we can help improve this figure by sending more children to schools. It takes only £ 24 to send one child to school for one year. With this programme we are reaching to 5000 out-of-school children in rural areas of our region every year. Most of them are girl children. Your support will ensure their regular schooling.

Please tell all you family and friends to help promote education of the out of school tribal children.

Thank once again for your time and support. I will be posting updates on this project regularly. For questions, please do contact me at deepti@sevamandir.org

With warm regards and we all look forward to your support.

Deepti