Dalit Freedom Network Canada

Rakesh Kumar Bhariya is from a poor Dalit family in North India. He lives with his two brothers and his parents. His mother is unemployed, meaning the family subsists on the meagre income earned by Rakesh's father, who repairs bicyles. Unfortunately this job does not guarantee a regular income and the family often struggles to survive.

Rakesh enrolled in the RAM Good Shepherd School in 2002, when it first opened. At this time he was in grade 1 and could not believe his good fortune in being admitted to a high-quality school. As the school was committed to families exactly like theirs, the cost of educating their son was never a burden to Rakesh's parents.

In 2012, Rakesh graduated from the Good Shepherd School. On this momentous occasion, the young man commented that he was so amazed to see how his whole life has changed thanks to the school. He expressed disbelief that he had already completed grade 10 and had done so in English, a language none of his family members have had the chance to learn. He believes that the school has changed him mentally, socially, and spiritually. Rakesh now aspires to become a doctor and serve people.

Thanks to your gift of sponsorship, thousands of children like Rakesh are having their lives transformed every day. The Dalits are today experiencing freedom through education.

Dalit children, many of whom come from shepherd families, face countless obstacles: poverty, lack of opportunity, discrimination, and oppression, to name a few. These circumstances make them extremely vulnerable to exploitation, including trafficking into the labour market or sex trade. The opportunity to attend school, however, can offer them freedom - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. 

By contributing towards a child's education, you are equipping them with skills and knowledge to pursue higher education or dignified employment when they graduate. More importantly, in the classroom of a Good Shepherd School Dalit children will learn that they have value and are in fact equal to all their classmates - regardless of caste. 

Please consider giving the gift of education this Christmas. For only $25/month, you can change the future - one child at a time. 

Asha is a Good Shepherd School student studying in 3rd grade. She lives with her parents. Her father earns very little money, not enough to meet their daily needs. Asha’s aunt works in a factory in the nearby city and helps them financially so that Asha can go to school. When Asha joined the Good Shepherd School, she did very well learning English. She studied very hard and improved drastically in all of her classes. She recently got recognized for getting the top marks in her class.

Asmita, a Good Shepherd School student, comes from a poverty-stricken family. Her mother is too sick to care for the family, and her father drives a three-wheeled taxi to support his wife and three children. Despite hardships at home, Asmita is a dedicated student who works hard and excels in her academics and extracurricular activities. She ranked first in her class during final exams and won several prizes at the school’s Annual Day sports competitions. Asmita has high hopes to graduate from her school, attend university, and go on to medical school.

This Christmas, you can send more children like Asmita to school, giving them the gift of freedom through education. All gifts between now and December 31 will be automatically doubled through our Christmas Matching Fund.

With the 2011-12 academic year now in session, many new children have enrolled at the FRD school. 89 students are now awaiting sponsorship. Many of these children are the first in their families to receive an education, but they need committed sponsors to achieve their academic dreams. Please consider sponsoring one of these Dalit children.

Priyanka is a lower kindergarten student at our NGP Good Shepherd School. She comes from a very poor Dalit family. Her father works in an orange farm and tends a garden; her mother works for daily wages doing gardening as well. Priyanka, her parents, and her infant brother live in a small mud home.

Priyanka's parents are extremely proud of their daughter's education. They often visit the school to enquire about her academic performance, and are pleased to hear the teachers say she is a sharp student, attentive and clever. She can write her numbers up to 20 and spell them as well. Priyanka is very neat and loves to dance, sing, and jump. Her favourite subject is English she always gets above 90% on her unit tests. She loves to participate in all school programs, particularly as a dancer. Her parents are very happy with her success, and have become ardent supporters of the school.

Stories like Priyanka's are echoed every day across India at our 107 Good Shepherd Schools. Thank you to each of you for helping bring freedom to so many Dalit children.

Sharon has a shocking story: soon after her birth, her parents abandoned her in the jungle to die. Like so many baby girls, she was unwanted and rejected.

One day, a man was walking in the jungle when he heard crying. After following the sound he found a baby girl and could not leave her in the jungle alone. He took the baby and tried to give her to a hospital, but they refused to take her. Finally he decided to take her into his home and raise her with his own children.

Sharon is now four years old. She is studying in kindergarten and enjoys learning. Her teachers report that she is a very obedient student. She likes all her subjects, but especially enjoys learning rhymes.

After having been forsaken by her birth parents, Sharon was fortunate enough to be welcomed by a new family. Although her life began with abandonment, she is now highly valued by both her family and her school. Her future once appeared hopeless, as is often the case for Dalit children, but education is opening the door for Sharon to experience freedom. 

Prabhavathi's family lives in a rural village in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Until recently, Prabhavathi, his siblings, and his mother were subjected to routine beatings by his father. The family lives in a small hut that gets flooded everytime it rains. Both Prabhavathi's parents and his two elder sisters do labour jobs, struggling daily to find enough work to earn a few dollars. This is the future for which Prabhavathi was destined. His parents never imagined that their children could have a life different from their own. Now, however, Prabhavathi is studying in grade 2 at the local Good Shepherd School, along with his younger brother Yesuraju. The boys’ parents are overjoyed that their sons are learning, speaking English, and on the path to good jobs. Education is freeing Prabhavathi from the cycle of poverty in which his family has been trapped, and allowing the entire family to dream of a new future.

Sangeeta and her brother Suraj attend RAM Good Shepherd School in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. They live in a small home in Bighana village, a poor community comprised of mud houses; in the rainy season all the roads turn to mud, making travel immensely difficult. Due to the remoteness of the area, the children’s father had to leave the village to find work; he is now employed in the faraway city of Bangalore, which forces him to be absent for long periods of time. This leaves the children’s mother to care for them and run the household on her own. The majority of the villagers in Bighana are illiterate, but thanks to sponsorship both Sangeeta and Suraj are receiving a high quality education. Both children are in grade 2 and are studying well. Their parents are thrilled that their kids have the opportunity to learn to read, write, and dream. Thank you to each of you who partner with DFN to send children like Sangeeta and Suraj to school – you are transforming their future.

This month, in lieu of writing a Project update we are inviting you to share your thoughts, opinions, and stories. We are asking you to write a comment on this page telling us and other readers why you support this particular project. What is it about education that interests you? What made you decide to get involved?

The staff of DFN Canada truly believes that you are as much a part of what is happening in India as we are. We are very thankful to have you as part of the team.

Let us know why this cause caught your attention!

This is a video of a group of orphaned or abandoned girls living in a hostel in South India. They composed this song themselves.

It is currently summer break for students in India, but many schools’ teachers and managers are still hard at work. During the break staff members visit villages to inform parents about their schools and to invite Dalit children to enroll. These visits often involve going to remote villages where no children are yet being educated. In certain areas, the visits are very targeted; for instance, the community surrounding HRD school has so far sent very few girls to study, as they don’t see the importance of educating their daughters. HRD’s manager is therefore sharing explicitly about the importance of educating all children. Through these visits we hope to see many more Dalit children receiving education and working towards a brighter future. 

DFN’s ninety schools across India are committed to a high standard of English-medium education, education that would not be available or affordable for Dalit children. However, as important as the quality of the teaching are the life lessons that the students learn. Parents of Good Shepherd School students in many villages report that since enrolling, their children are now disciplined, respectful, and clean. What’s more, students are taught both explicitly and more subtly about their own value, as their teachers love them, spend time with them, touch them, and treat upper caste and Dalit students the same. The DFN schools are truly providing life education for their students, transforming their sense of self-worth as well as their knowledge and opportunities for the future. 

In many villages, parents do not see any value in education their daughters. In Indian culture, once a girl is married she goes to live with her husband’s family; because of this, some parents believe that investing in their daughters is a waste of time and money, as they will only leave. The villagers living near HRD school have exactly this attitude and the result is that of the school’s 172 students, only 19 are girls. In the highest grade, 2nd standard, there is only one girl – Radhika. The school manager and teachers are working very consciously to promote the education of girls. This summer, before admissions for the next academic year begin, they are planning to visit all the surrounding villages to share about the importance of sending all children to school. They conducted the same programs last summer, and more girl students were enrolled in kindergarten than in any previous year. While HRD is facing significant challenges in enrolling girls, there are also schools where the exact opposite is true: at AGS school, located only a few hours away, the 2008 graduating class comprised exclusively females. Hopefully in the years to come we will see many girls graduating from HRD as well.

NGP school is located near a major city that boasts hundreds of elementary and secondary schools. However, in general there are only two options: very expensive private schools, or free public schools with a low standard of education. This has changed with the presence of the NGP Good Shepherd School. Now high-quality, English-medium education is available to poor village children for the first time. The school manager is working tirelessly to ensure that the level of English instruction is exemplary, and Dalit and tribal children are being given the opportunity to receive excellent education without major expense or long travel. This school is truly paving new roads for all children, giving the poor access to a standard which was previously attainable only by the wealthy. 

For the past year the RSP school has employed a DFN-trained healthcare worker, a smiling 23-year-old woman called Sarah (name changed to protect the individual). Sarah is now providing exceptional healthcare both to the Good Shepherd School and to the slum.

While there are twenty-five organizations providing healthcare in the area, the majority run expensive clinics and offer only infrequent community programs. DFN’s approach of having a healthcare worker available all week, visiting families in their homes, is unique and desperately needed. Sarah conducts awareness programs every Saturday about varied topics such as hygiene, nutrition, or prenatal health. These programs help to increase general awareness, and Sarah further supplements the teaching with regular home visits, where she can show people how to apply what they have learned. She visits homes three days a week, averaging about fifty homes a day.

Sarah also works in the school two days a week. She distributes daily vitamins to the students and measures their growth twice annually. She observes the students in their classes, treating them when necessary, and doing follow-up care. Sarah reports that the students are now always washing their hands before eating and having daily baths even in winter; this marks significant progress. Students are in turn teaching their families these new habits.

There are some health myths that Sarah is attempting to dispel. One belief is that pregnant women should not eat bananas or papayas, as they could be abortive. Sarah is encouraging expecting mothers to eat nutritious food, including fruit. Another obstacle is social stigma, which is particularly prevalent around HIV/AIDS. People will not admit to having this disease out of fear that their families and community will shame them; Sarah is working hard to combat these fears as well.

The most common illnesses the healthcare worker sees are malaria and typhoid, due to the current cold weather and the dirty environment. She reports that people routinely get treatment for these diseases, visiting a clinic or hospital for medication. If GSS students are ill she takes them to a clinic with which she has a partnership and where the students are treated at no cost. Sarah reports that the primary cause of death in the slum is accidents, not illness.

Sarah faces many challenges every day. While all the healthcare, training, and medicine she provides are free, this in fact poses a problem: since they have not paid, patients often feel no obligation to take medicine. Because of this Sarah consistently has to explain the importance of treatment and convince patients to take their pills. Also, while people’s homes are generally clean, the streets are filthy. Municipality street sweepers clear the lanes but pile all the trash into a large heap that only gets collected once weekly. Sarah identifies the slum’s biggest needs as increased health education and a DFN clinic, which will hopefully become a reality as soon as a suitable piece of land is found.

Despite the lack of health knowledge, there are certain admirable health practices that all slum residents adhere to. People drink good water, which is delivered by the government every other day; they only use the contaminated tap water for cleaning, bathing, and laundry. Every home has a toilet, which greatly helps hygiene. Most pregnant women deliver at a hospital and breast-feed their infants and as a result most babies are healthy. Each of these healthy practices is worthy of celebrating.

Already, DFN’s healthcare worker is having an impact on health in the slum and the school. People are very responsive to her teaching and Sarah says she is very well received in the slum. She attributes this to the fact that she works for the Good Shepherd School; the school and its teachers are so respected in the community that people welcome the healthcare worker openly. Because of the strong relationships the school has built with the surrounding community, they are able to do far more than just educate the children.

This is truly the mission of DFN: to transform entire communities. RSP is only one amazing story in progress in India. Thank you to each of you who sponsor a child at the RSP school or are involved in the work in some way. You are having a tremendous impact on many lives.

We spent a morning sitting under the schoolyard’s sole tree, interviewing four Canadian-sponsored children with the help of the 6^th class teacher’s translating skills. We further spoke with the school manager, who supplemented the stories we gleaned from the students. Remarkably, three of the students’ parents were immediately available to share with us. Here are the stories of four vibrant young students whose lives are being transformed by education – thanks to their sponsors.

Neha Mohammad

Neha is 10 years old and currently studying in 5^th class. Her younger siblings, one sister and two brothers, are also studying at GSS. Neha’s family lives across from the school in a one-room home. Their home comprises shelves, a dish rack, a cooking area, and a rather large TV; her parents share the one bed, while the children sleep on the floor. Her father is an auto rickshaw driver; her mother works in a factory, and attended school until 5^th standard. Neha is one of the top-ranked students in her class and loves to participate in school programs by singing and dancing. When she completes her education she would like to be a teacher. Her parents have incredible faith in her and believe she can achieve all her dreams. 

Maheswari Rukaiah

Maheswari is 13 years old, studying in 6^th standard. She enjoys school, particularly Math, and would also like to be a teacher. Maheswari’s two older brothers studied at GSS for a time before leaving school to work, so when she was old enough her parents sent her to study at the school they now thought of as safe and familiar. Her parents work as daily labourers in the slum and have a good rapport with GSS, getting involved in both school and community programs. The school manager boasts that Maheswari has “good leadership capability” – every morning she leads the school assembly. Maheswari reports that she is always happy to receive letters from her sponsors and appreciates that they encourage her in her studies.

Purushotham Madimagula

Purushotham is 11 years old and presently in 6^th class. He has attended GSS since nursery; his teacher says he has “grown up in front of us, makes us very happy.” Purushotham has an older brother who attended GSS and is now in 9^th standard at another school, and a sister in 5^th standard at GSS. His favourite subject is science and he dreams of working for the police. He also loves cricket and enjoys playing at home. Purushotham’s family has lived in the slum for eighteen years; his parents moved here in search of work after they got married. Now both his parents work as daily labourers, primarily doing house construction. His mother, Lakshmi, says she sends her children to GSS because other schools are too expensive, and this one is “good in study ways, all ways, helping students.” Lakshmi is so impressed with the school that she tells new residents to send their own children there; so far nearly ten students have enrolled because of her.  The school manager reports that Purushotham is the best student in the school.

Aslam Mohammad

The final student we interviewed was Aslam, a 10-year-old boy studying in 4^th standard. Aslam has two sisters, one who is married and the other too young to attend school, as well as two brothers, both of whom study at GSS. Unfortunately his elder sister, who was married at 16, has recently had trouble with her in-laws, who wanted more dowry from her family; she has now returned home. Aslam’s favourite subject is math, and he would like to work after finishing school, although he is not yet sure what kind of job he would like. Aslam’s family moved to RSP twenty-five years ago from another district in Andhra Pradesh. His mother does not work and his father sells flowers; they are a very poor family. Neither of Aslam’s parents is educated but they are very happy to see their children learning – Aslam and his brothers studying well is the family’s hope. The manager reports that Aslam is one of the first-ranked students in his class and that he is also very good at sports.

Next week we will feature our final story about RSP, this time about health in the slum. Please check back then!

 For the past fifteen years, RSP slum has been home to one of DFN’s Good Shepherd Schools (GSS). Starting off with only ten students and one teacher, RSP was in fact the very first DFN school, built as a model for future schools. Now, in 2010, the school has 197 students – 134 of whom are sponsored by Canadians – and a staff of nine teachers and one healthcare worker. Remarkably, the students are nearly half male and half female; this is unusual in India, where many schools see a predominance of male students. The school currently offers classes from LKG (lower kindergarten) to sixth standard, but hopes to one day offer all the way to the final tenth standard. The GSS has provided English-medium education for the past seven years; previously students were taught in the local Telugu language.

This school is truly a light in the slum. The teachers have come from across India to serve poverty-stricken families. They are not only offering their students the brighter future that education will grant them, but are also caring for many of their needs. In an area where many parents work late, the teachers are available to look after the students outside of school hours. As well, they are role models for the students. While the teachers lack most of the educational resources we take for granted in the West, they care deeply about their students and are therefore having a huge impact. It is obvious from speaking with the students that their respect for their educators runs deep and that they see the teachers as friends.

The GSS has established very good relationships with the surrounding community. There is great support from parents, local elders, and political leaders, all of whom recognize the school’s tremendous work. While the school does not advertise, there are always newcomers; this is due to the verbal praise of the school circulating throughout the slum. About a hundred parents attend the school meetings and are involved regardless of their religion or caste; in this way the school is uniting slum dwellers who otherwise have nothing in common.

While amazing things are happening at the GSS, there are many pressing needs. Currently the school is halfway through the process of receiving their government recognition certificate; the rules have recently changed and only with this certification can the school operate without fear of being shut down. Perhaps the most significant need is for a bigger space and bigger building: the school operates on a small plot of government land and is at full capacity. They do not have desks or even proper classrooms, due to spatial constraints. After completing their sixth standard at GSS, students are forced to change schools to complete their studies. Having a larger plot of land would permit a larger, perhaps two-storey building with enough space to accommodate all interested students. Finally, while the school once offered a midday meal it had to terminate this crucial program due to lack of funding. Despite all these needs, the school is continuing to change the lives of its 197 students and to impact the slum in amazing ways.

Please check back next week to hear stories of four Canadian-sponsored students and the role of the Good Shepherd School in their lives.

(Click on Images to see photo's from this update)

 The RSP slum is one of the biggest in the sprawling city of Hyderabad. It spans nearly three kilometres in length and another kilometre in depth. RSP first emerged in 1990 and until recently consisted of makeshift homes and tents. The land is owned by the airport authority, and when the international airport was relocated to the outskirts of the city a few years ago, the dwellings became more permanent. Residents now feel confident they will be allowed to stay and have built solid, typically one-room homes from bricks and concrete.

Despite the less than desirable living conditions, people flock here from all over India in search of work for themselves and education for their children; neither of these are guaranteed luxuries in their villages. Hyderabad is a large enough city that nearly everyone finds employment, regardless of their education level, although this does not always ensure sufficient wages for survival. Most women work as housemaids in one or two houses; this job affords them about $12-14 a month. Men’s employment tends to be more lucrative. The majority work as daily labourers, perhaps doing construction or working as drivers, and earn closer to $2-4 every day, or $60-120 a month. Some families may also run their own small businesses, selling items such as nuts or flowers. While these salaries seem a pittance to us, they mark a considerable improvement from wages in the village. Maybe 10% of the adult slum dwellers do not work, primarily due to advanced age. At around age 50 people slow down due to the extreme climate, the physical toll of working, and the sheer burden of it all. These individuals typically stay home, becoming dependent on their adult children to care for them.

One notable light in this darkness is the Dalit Education Centre, RSP’s Good Shepherd School. Please visit the site next week to hear the school’s story.

(Click on Images to see photo's from this update)

 We reached and surpassed the goal for 2009 of $10,000! We have increased the goal to reach $30,000 by the end of 2010. Thanks for everyone's support ...It's making a difference!

Shivneela is student of grade-8, studying at our JDP School. She comes to school from a near by slum. Her parents migrated to their new home in search of a job. The only job they could find was to cut stone in a near by rock-quarry.

Her both parents are working as stone cutters for the last 6 years in this rock-quarry. She has two elder sisters of 15 and 17 who work as a domestic maid-servants and one elder brother who works as a driver. She is the only privileged girl in the family to study in a school and able to speak in English. After the schools hours, Shivneela used to go to the near by houses to work as a maid-servant so that she could help her family financially. Both her parents suffer with ill-health and her income comes as a help to the family. Hobbies and recreations do not find time in her busy daily schedule between the school and work. She hopes that her opportunity to be educated in English would bring freedom and liberty one day in her life. Her dream is to become a teacher one day, a privilege that no one had in her family.

*See images on the right of this page for a photo of Shivneela