Our location:
Nagpur
The focus of our work in India is education - giving children the opportunity to receive an education that leads not only to employment, but to the development of the whole person.
Education is a major key to breaking the poverty cycle. While education opens up employment opportunities, this is just one outcome, as it changes lives in many different ways. Education is essential for building self-esteem, financial security, social justice, health and long-term economic development for communities. It also enables people to be effective citizens, having a voice and the ability to participate in community decision-making. Education empowers people to be involved in local and national governments.
This project provides education support to students through the provision of funding to quality, English-medium schools, as well as books, stationery, uniforms, transport, medical treatment and accommodation and tutoring as required.
Our work in India
Our project in India focuses on providing education to children from poor backgrounds, giving them the opportunity for a future.
We seek to come alongside marginalised families, who not only suffer from poverty, but also other issues such as being single parents, being rejected by their extended families, and being impacted by HIV and AIDS. Such issues place these families in particularly vulnerable positions within Indian society.
Lack of education is a key issue that not only keeps people in India in a state of poverty, but also puts those who have recently escaped poverty at risk of falling back into it. Providing quality education is a strategy to ensure that students have the opportunity to reach their potential and gain crucial life skills and social skills, as well as becoming employable. Employment secures not only their future, but also the future of their families yet to come, as well as their existing families whom they will then be able to help care for and support.
Why India?
India is home to over 1.2 billion people, making it the largest democracy, with the second biggest population in the world today. Since gaining independence more than six decades ago, India has made significant advancement and moved forward in many ways. This includes changes to agriculture, improvements in life expectancy, literacy rates and health conditions. In fact, a sizeable middle-class has emerged and now some of the richest people in the world call India home.
However, there is another side to this story - more than 400 million people in India still live in poverty - that's one third of the world's poor! It seems that the rich are getting richer, while the poor get poorer, with inequality increasing across both rural and urban India.
The Stats.
-
21% of India's population are living in extreme poverty
-
More than 400 million people are living in poverty
-
217 million children are malnourished - that's 40%
of the world's malnourished children -
1 in 11 children die before the age of 5
-
1 in 4 girls do not attend primary school.
-
1 in 10 boys do not attend primary school
-
75% of people live on less than $2 per day
-
56% of adult women are illiterate
-
86% of rural families do not have adequate sanitation
World Food Program, 2022 https://www.wfp.org/countries/india
Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, India Country Brief,
www.dfat.gov.au/geo/india/pages/india-country-brief.aspx
Oxfam India Fact Sheet, www.oxfam.org.au/country/india
Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Bureau of Planning, Monitoring & Statistics,
New Delhi, 2014, Education Statistics at a Glance, www.mhrd.gov.in
United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf
USAID, India, https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1861/India_Country%20Profile%202014.pdf
The World Bank, Countries, India, www.worldbank.org/en/countryindia/overview
Our Partner:
St Ursula Girls High School
We work together with a team at St Ursula Girls High School to facilitate our education sponsorships. St Ursula have a long legacy, having been established back in 1857. Today, the school has a focus on the overall development of students, as well as imparting quality education. The team who work with CBL are experts in the education field, as well as having much experience and engagement in social work and the care and development of students. Alongside this, they possess a great compassion for those from vulnerable and marginalised backgrounds.
Essential to the partnership between CBL and St Ursula is a third element, our education consultant, Obed Nag. Obed is an experienced educator, who has worked at all levels of the education sector, from teaching and tutoring, through to being a school Director. He has also worked in social welfare, with NGOs and churches, doing community development work. Obed works alongside St Ursula in the care and follow up of the students in our program, exploring and developing education and employment pathways and designing family and community interventions.
St Ursula is a registered education institution in Maharashtra, and have a registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).