Children of our Charity School

I talked about the school situation in India in the last two days. The lack of education is really a big problem and running a school in these circumstances is a challenge. I told you already that many parents did not go to school and do not see any need to send their children there. We offer to give not only the classes but also the uniforms and one warm meal per day for free. This makes it more attractive for them and many children actually come here for the food. They even bring their younger brothers and sisters even if they have not reached the age for going to school yet.

Purnendu laughed about some parents’ attitude. They believe that we should be thankful that they send their children to our school. They do not value it. And of course, as I told you already, they think that the children could as well work somewhere and earn money. You can find many children working in shops and as servants. The childhood is spent in working instead of playing and having fun in school. And their future would be much better and easier if they could go to school. So we go and talk to parents, explain them the benefits of education and very often we convince them to send their children to school. However when they decide after two months that it is not worth it after all, we cannot do anything.

Unfortunately this also happens. We feel very sorry about this but what can we do? Whenever a child does not come to school unexcused for several days we need to talk with the parents again. We go to their home and sometimes we get the answer that this boy or girl has a job now. We cannot force anybody. This is how sometimes a child is in our list to be sponsored and after a while the child is not at the school anymore. We hope that our sponsors understand the difficult situation. It can happen that you sponsor a child and just after two months he or she is not coming to school anymore. So we take other children in to give them the chance for a bright future.

At this moment we have more than 100 children who are coming regularly. We have good teachers who keep an eye on them and who contact the family when they see that a child is not coming anymore. When the children are ill we also provide medical help for them. We do what we can and we are full of hope and with positive energy that we can give some good influence and change this with your help. We also have success when you look at the school and how nicely it is running. It was important to share this all with you because like this you have a better understanding.

The water of the river started going back again.