Excellente nouvelle !!!

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HYT_teamL’ école Buddha’s Smile School de Bénarès (Inde) a pris livraison ce 3 août de son nouveau school-bus!

La concrétisation de plus de deux années de collecte de fonds par l’équipe d’Human Y Terre Mouvaux : soit 15000 euros pour ce don qui permet aux enfants des bidonvilles d’être acheminés en sécurité vers l’école BSS qui leur garantit éducation et repas quotidien.

Nos actions ont permis à cette opération de voir le jour, grâce à vous tous : adhérents, membres bienfaiteurs entreprises (société ISE), ou particuliers (artistes et personnes de cœur) inscrits à nos rdv annuels, partenaires presse, mécènes….comme fans sur les réseaux sociaux : des plus modestes aux plus généreux donateurs!

Mention spéciale aux enfants de l’école St Roch qui ont collecté 750 euros lors d’un pique nique  solidaire….

Encore MERCI à tous !
Et bonne route aux enfants de Benares

Contact humanyterre France at
www.humanyterre.com
or on their Facebook page
Human Y Terre Mission Gagnon

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Thank you to special friends in Europe!

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Buddha’s Smile School has a new YELLOW school bus, thanks to it’s many friends in Mouvaux, France and the Netherlands.

Thanks to Patrizia de Chiara, Do Radius and all our friends at the French NGO Humanyterre in Mouvaux who raised 15000 Euros through their membership, and with gifts from ISE corporation and many artists and other individuals on their social networks list.

The St. Roch Kindergarten, Mouvaux, France, held a picnic which raised 750 Euros for the bus and the Board and Employees Council of the Dutch broadcasting corporation BNN-VARA awarded BSS a Labour Day Gift of 2500 Euros toward the new bus, thanks to a proposal submitted to them by Mrs. Monique Rutter.

We also want to thank Humanyterre and Hyt who paid for repairs to our old school bus. Now we’ll have two fully-operational and safe buses for transporting the 220 children to and from school each day.

Funds for the original bus purchase were donated in 2007 by Geir and Ase Davidson and the many school children, friends and businesses of Etne, Norway who continue to support BSS by helping provide daily meals for the children.

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First run of the new Bus thanks to everyone
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The new bus arrives

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fixed BSS Bus
BSS children happy in their soon to be repaired bus
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Our old and soon to be fixed bus. Many Thanks

Jahida’s story

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Jahida, her mother, Rajan
Jahida (left), her mother & Rajan

The amazing summary of this story is how an Indian Dalit girl, while forced to marry, is able to continue her schooling and reach her goal of becoming a nurse.

Jahida has been attending Buddha’s Smile School since 2007.  Like many before and after her she took it upon herself to visit BSS and ask Rajan to allow her and her sister to be enrolled in Buddha’s Smile School. She’d found out about BSS from her neighborhood Bengali refugee friends while they collected trash together.

Like many Dalit girls in Northern India, Jahida is over-burdened with her family’s many survival needs which take priority over her own and are placed firmly on the shoulders of even youngest children.

“But Jahida had a dream, and some get-up and go,” Rajan Kaur Saini, founder of Buddha’s Smile School’s said. “She’d decided many years before, she wanted to extricate herself from the poor begging lifestyle and become a Nurse.”

After passing grade 5 at BSS, Rajan helped Jahida enroll in class 8 in a Government run middle school.

“It’s a pity but Jahida had to drop-out from her school last year due to more family pressures.  Her mother fell sick and Jahida had to work hard for her family to help them survive.” Rajan said. “However, Jahida was lucky and after a while we were able to help her return to school and continue with her studies.”

However, in the meantime Jahida’s mother had made Jahida marry as she felt it would protect her daughter and keep her safe. Fortunately, Jahida’s wish to continue her studies was honored and she was allowed to continue living with her mother and studying, and not have to move in with her husband’s family .

Her husband is 17 years old, the same age as Jahida.

“Jahida will move to the girls dormitory after we build it in 2016. We will then watch over her and help her develop her self confidence so she is be able to achieve her dream to become a Nurse one day.” Rajan said.

To support Jahida and the many other BSS students like her please make a donation today!

 

 

Gunja wins first prize

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IMG_5378“I’m so excited,” Rajan Kaur Saini, founder of Buddha’s Smile School said. “I want to tell everyone how Gunja recently won first prize in her school’s art competition and was selected the best student in art for the whole school.”

Gunja attended BSS for many years and is now one of their  middle school students. While middle school students are still cared for by BSS and sponsored by BSS donors, they attend a government-run middle school.

“Winning this prize has given Gunja more confidence and she has become even more dedicated to learning and showing other BSS students how it’s possible to progress,” Rajan said.

This is the first education hurdle many kids from BSS need to manage, moving from the more cloistered BSS environment out into the world of a government school. Rajan and her team monitor every child. They’re taken to school each day in a BSS bus, call into BSS to have a meal and their homework checked and at the same time have their frame of mind assessed.

“Gunja always tells us she is so proud to be a student of BSS,” Rajan said. “She is a number one star, in my opinion, an example of what can be achieved by the poor Dalit children.”

Gunja lives in a leper community on the outskirts of Varanasi, India. Buddha’s Smile School currently looks after 35 children from this community.

“I discovered her community in 2006,” Rajan said  “A leper woman who knocked on the school gate asked me to visit the community and asked if the children could be given an opportunity to attend school at BSS.  No one cares or pays attention to them, she told me,  because they are the children of lepers.”

Gunja was among the first batch of children BSS took and  she has always wanted to become an artist one day, Rajan says.

“Today we can see the huge changes she has made,” Rajan said. “Her hidden talents are shining through and Gunja can finally see that it might be possible for her to live her dream. She may truly become an ARTIST one day.”

Gunja is now in 6th grade. She is intelligent, vital and, as Rajan says, “she knows the value of herself and is a proud young girl.”

However, in her government school Gunja cannot tell anyone she comes from a leper community.  “So this is another reason the girl’s dormitory we are building will be so helpful. It will keep Gunja and the other girls safe for the future,” Rajan said.

 

 

This is Puja’s Story

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Puja

Puja has Down’s Syndrome. In 2012 when Rajan found her she was twelve years old, sitting alone, in a corner of a Chaukaghat railway station community shanty house. She’d never learnt to speak and no one in her family bothered trying to talk to her.

“I wonder why Puja has lived this long,” her mother said to Rajan.

And that is when Rajan decided she must get Puja into BSS so they could teach her as much as possible.

Over the past few years, Puja has slowly developed and has opened up to all the BSS teachers, who have taken a special interest in helping Puja and motivating her.

“Everyone tried to help develop her social skills. At first she did not want to come to school and was not interested once she got here, but we all helped and now she looks forward to attend Buddha’s Smile School each day,” Rajan said.

“We’d show her things from my ‘magic bag’ and soon she became interested to learn through the toys and pretty things.  Now she never misses a day. Puja loves to color in her notebooks and also to dance,” Rajan said.

“I’m planning to have a dance teacher work with her. Just like our deaf mute student, Deepak, who can now play the tabla (drum) I believe one day Puja will also find her talent which she can develop to make a better life for herself.”

 

 

Let’s keep him coming to school!

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Badal
Badal, pleased to have arrived at Buddha’s Smile School

This motivated child of Buddha’s Smile School, studying in Class 1, is so excited to come to school everyday!

This week, he overslept and almost missed the school bus. But no worries! He so didn’t want to miss school, he ran to get on the bus and came to school without his clothes on!

Help us make sure he and others like him can keeping coming to school by making a donation today. We’ve raised 27 of the 43 scholarships we need for this year – but we need your help to cover the rest. Sponsor a child today.

Buddha’s Smile School is short of funds to cover 43 students this year. In just one month, with your amazing support, we’ve raised enough to cover 27 of these students. Help us cover the costs for the last 16! A full-year primary or middle school scholarship at BSS is just $400 USD a year or $33 USD a month. A donation of any amount helps. Make a donation today!

 

 

BSS student enters National Cadet Corps

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BSS Samsher NCC certificate 8-15Getting ahead in India when you are from a family of beggars and of the untouchable caste is a major achievement. Growing up in a slum with alcoholics, little food and shelter and probably a daily beating or two can either make or break a child.

Buddha’s Smile School, in Varanasi, India has produced many winners since it began in 2003. One of them, pictured left, is Samsher who as a long time student of BSS has now gained entry to the NCC, India’s prestigious National Cadet Corp.

Samsher might find he has to spend the next few years waking early and studying hard, but thanks to Buddha’s Smile School and his own hard work, his future, released from the unhealthy lifestyle and poverty of the slums, is assured.

Well done, Samsher. You make us proud.

 

 

Priyanka, the girl who loves school

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Priyanka
Priyanka now 14 yrs old

You wouldn’t think it, but most BSS children look forward to going to school each day. Priyanka, who has been a student at BSS since 2006 and is now 14 yrs old and studying in class 5, is no exception.

In 2013 Priyanka had to drop-out of school for two years because her mother was pregnant and Priyanka was required to work as a maid, earning money for the family. Priyanka’s mother and father now have three sons and being the only girl in a poor Indian family, Priyanka is inundated by many responsibilities.

“She is an intelligent girl,” Rajan said, “and when she was able, Priyanka enrolled again in BSS in hopes of fulfilling her dream to become a nurse. Priyanka and her mother were put under significant pressure from her community to ensure she got married,” Ragan added. “Their community created this very bad situation and Priyanka became increasingly depressed. It was intolerable,” Rajan said.

“One day, while Priyanka was at home doing her homework, one of her neighbours barged in and tore her homework into small pieces to try and dissuade Priyanka from continuing with her education. The pressure continued and Priyanka’s depression became worse, making her sick with bad headaches.”

“One night at about 10 pm, while we were eating dinner,” Rajan said, “we heard a loud voice calling us and someone knocking frantically at the school door. It was Priyanka. She was crying and asked us to help her.”

“I don’t want to marry,” she told us. “I just want to study and become a nurse one day.”

“Like many children at BSS, Priyanka has hopes and dreams of living a life away from the slums,” Rajan said.

The day after, Jagdish, the BSS headmaster took Priyanka back to her parents. The next day, Rajan’s husband Sukhdev visited members of her village and some of the older boys who attended BSS and asked them all to support Priyanka in her efforts to study and remain at BSS.

“Things have settled down somewhat,” Rajan said. “Next year our new female dormitory will be built and we will offer Priyanka a place so she can grow strong, study and live with less turmoil in her life. She loves going to school at BSS very much and she shares all her problems with us. Her father drinks too much and her mother has health issues and difficulty working. Fortunately, Priyanka’s mother is able to earn enough to feed her children at least one meal a day.”

 

 

Children who are forced to beg

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Children Attending BSSVaranasi is a colorful but impoverished metropolis overflowing with cultural significance yet haunted by the many hundreds of thousands of untouchable children. Children who are forced to beg, living their lives in poverty, ignorance and abuse.

Buddha’s Smile School (BSS), founded and directed by teacher Rajan Kaur, feeds, educates and nurtures 350 of Varanasi’s untouchable children, providing them with a chance to break away from their poverty-stricken lives and merge into Indian society as vital, confident participants.

BSS takes children as young as six years old and looks after their day to day medical, food and educational needs. It encourages them toward attaining a higher education. Currently more than 60 children have moved through the BSS program. Some find work and others are able to extend their education via additional sponsorship. Currently there are several dozen children attending middle school and high school.

Where the children live, a ragpicker's homeLeaky make-shift lean-tos, flooded for a large part of the year due to the monsoon is home to these children and their families. Malaria, rats, rabid dogs, lack of food and basic hygiene are their constant companions. They are spurned by others as unclean and untouchable yet loved, hugged and nurtured by Rajan and her teachers. BSS is their oasis, their lifeline. They arrive eager to learn because they understand knowledge is their way out. It’s their path to a life without begging and abuse. A better life. A healthier more independent and rewarding life.

Buddha’s Smile School feeds these children with more than food. It heals them with more than medicine and it enthuses them with more than dreams. Rajan’s husband Sukhdev runs the family restaurant attached to BSS. He cooks for the children, provides fatherly help and advice and his small business adds to the school’s significant funding needs.

Some parents paint circles of soot and oil around their children’s eyes to ward off evil. For BSS warding off the evil is a never ending financial and emotional battle. An increase in malaria this month, a raft of broken bone or a desperate parent trying to sell a daughter for food or save a son from a rabid dog-bite. Through all this Rajan and her teachers teach maths and English, dance and painting. They fight superstition, discrimination and hate and very month they visit the Dalit communities spending time with each family and ensuring the children are being cared for.

BSS always need financial help. The problems are massive and Rajan is constantly trying to juggle the medical, food and educational need of BSS to ensure the best outcome. Sometimes, like now, her juggling act becomes desperate as a major increase in malaria strikes her BSS children.