New York artist Erica Harris teaching a class

In January of 2012 Brooklyn, NY artist Erica Harris was welcomed to Buddha’s Smile School in India to teach art classes and take photos of daily activities at BSS. Thank you also to Erica and her friends who raised over $6,000 for BSS middle school scholarships. We invite you to take a look at Erica’s beautiful photos of our BSS students

Recently Preethi has had a change of mind: she’s decided she wants to quit BSS and forget about developing all her good qualities. Instead she wants to marry a 40 year-old man from her colony who’s enticing her with promises of money, protection and love, but not letting on the hidden agenda he and his friends have to make money from her. Preethi is even spurning her mother who’s worked so hard to support them.

Preethi’s mother phoned me in tears, desperate and frightened and asking for help. She hadn’t eaten in two days. I called Preethi and spoke directly with her about her wishes. I asked if she really wants to marry at age 12 with an old man of 40. The way she said ‘no’ in response told me she is not speaking for herself but with the words of someone else.

I reminded her of the value of Mother: her mother who cares for her at home, and I, her mother at BSS, who teaches her the right path. I asked for her promise to come to school and said that one day I believe she can become independent. She promised to continue her studies, but she is still confused and her future is threatened.

Another similar incident recently happened in the Bengali refugee community with Devi, a 9 year-old girl from BSS. By her mother’s wish she has been promised in marriage to a 15 year-old boy – another BSS student in class 3. Devi’s mother is a widow, again influenced by her community for the wrong things. I called her mother and tried to make her understand, but she is only excited to have her child married.

These kinds of stories are most likely to happen to widows who have no power or respect in society after their husbands are gone. I have seen many cases like Preethi’s and Devi’s and to save these girls I aim to build a dormitory at BSS to act as an emergency women’s shelter. Also, if parents have to move elsewhere for work but their children wish to continue their studies, a dormitory at BSS would provide them with the option. Having a dormitory at BSS could make all the difference for the futures of students in dire situations like these.

By Rajan Kaur as told to Tenzin Chozom

Brooklyn Conservatory of Music benefit concert poster

Over 20 performers of contemporary classical, jazz, and world music will present a concert to support Buddha’s Smile School at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music on Saturday December 10 from 6 to 10 PM!

Featuring

• Lara Allen, soprano
• Michael Brofman, piano
• Julian de la Chica, piano
• Jade Conlee, piano
• Hui Cox, guitar
• Anna Dagmar, voice/piano
• Andrew D’Angelo, bass clarinet
• Fingers DelRey, piano
• Joanna Dionis, mezzo-soprano
• Ezra Donner, piano
• Steven Gerber, piano
• Stephanie Griffin, viola
• Sara Holzshue, vocals
• Julieanne Klein, soprano
• Maki Kobayashi, piano
• Beth Levin, piano
• Jon Liechty, piano
• Christine Perea, flute
• Mariel Roberts, cello
• Michael Rose, piano
• Ivan Rubinstein-Gilles, vocals/guitar
• Mia Theodoratus, electric harp
• Deborah van Renterghem, soprano
• Maria Wagner, clarinet
• Photos by John Gurrin

Please help support BSS by attending this wonderful event and do please tell your friends!

WHAT: Benefit Concert for Buddha’s Smile School

WHEN: Saturday December 10, 2011; from 6-10 PM

WHERE: Brooklyn Conservatory Concert Hall, 58 Seventh Avenue; Brooklyn, NY 11217

HOW MUCH: Suggested Donation: $20

For More Information: Please visit the Brooklyn Conservatory Concert Hall Website

Students of Ostteg Elementary School, Umea, Sweden.

Tack (thanks!) to the 29 students of Ostteg Elementary School,Umea, Sweden and their teacher Christer Rosenqvist for holding a successful flea market and bake sale which raised $1,000 for Buddha’s Smile school. Thank you, students, for caring so much about the BSS children in Varanasi.

Dozens of supporters contributed close to $8,000!

We want to give a shout of thanks to Brooklyn, NY artist Erica Harris (now in India and soon to visit BSS) who created a small tsunami of energy around her city raising funds for scholarships for BSS graduates attending middle school. Erica and her fantastic friends raised nearly $8,000. Be sure to check out Erica’s fascinating global art on her website.

A special thanks to the Brooklyn Commune cafe for holding a sale of Erica’s prints raising $800, enough for one scholarship and a lot of fresh food for BSS kids. Check out their website.

and enjoy dining on fresh regionally grown food when in Brooklyn. (That’s the Brooklyn Commune gang in the photo.)

Thanks to Erica, Shannon Holman and other Brooklyn friends, Paro, Vishal, Ravi, Khusboo, Rekha, Sunita, Brijesh, and Pooja now have a one year scholarship to middle school. They were previously holding down full-time jobs, garbage collectors and recyclers on the streets of Varanasi. Now these kids are full time students in middle school and their heads are full of dreams.

By Andrea Parker

It was a great privilege to return to BSS this February 2011. I first visited in April 2010 with four friends, and returned ten months later with a group of seven. What a difference a year has made to the children of Buddha’s Smile School.

The work going on at BSS truly is a transformative process. We felt fortunate to see the spectrum of change in the children. On this trip we met two little boys who were new to school, and they seemed nearly wild. Rajan explained they are like many of her student when they first arrive. These boys had had very little parenting or socialization at their home in the garbage dump. Rajan even had to change one of the boy’s names; his given name was not an appropriate name to be said aloud. We saw both Rajan and the teachers pour time, effort and love into these boys to help get them to a place where they could sit still, listen and learn.

I was so impressed with Rajan and the teacher’s patience with these two boys. Every student at BSS receives this same life changing love and attention – and for many, this is the only place they receive love.

In contrast, we met about 25 graduates of BSS who are now attending middle school. Their eyes are bright and their spirits are high. They told us they want to become doctors, policemen, businessmen and one hopes to become the president of India.

Rajan believes that education is the way out of the rigid caste system of India. Because of Rajan and BSS, hundreds of children now hope and dream for a better tomorrow in the midst of a social system that tells them they are worthless.

I eagerly look forward to our team’s visit next year to see the next steps in the journey of transformation for these precious children.

Andrea Parker and her team from Los Angeles with the students of BSS, February 2011.

They volunteered during the month of February 2011 at Buddha’s Smile School. Along with their smiles the group brought 21 pieces of luggage with 500 pounds of vitamins, bandages and school supplies. We also thank Journey of Faith Church who provided the funds for Andrea and her team to paint four of BSS’s classrooms. Andrea and her group also taught first aid to the staff, art and crafts and songs to the children and purchased each of the 220 students a new pair of shoes and socks.

Thank you for sending these! Our students are so excited to learn about new places and want to share their world with you.

I am sending the middle school photos and report and I hope you will be so surprise to see these students,they have so completely changed and looks intelligent and smart. This makes me feel proud and gives me hope of my hard work.

I really wish to make them stand and see them independent. One day they will be.

In one of the photo you can see two girls Mamta and Puja with Sukhdev, they were wearing sweater in a opposite way, Sukhdev asked them why your sweater is in opposite way they explained that it will get dirty because we have to wear same in the morning for school that is why we are wearing in wrong way. They are now much responsible.

In few photos you will see the girls are making the models of Computers. We helped them to complete them due to short time because they have to submit next day.

I would like to send the more pictures, but I hope you will all love them to see.

Now a days few boys are busy to carry road lights on Indian marriages at night time because now the marriage season is going on.

Now in this session there are 15 students to go to middles school. this is worrying matter for me…….

Again Thank you all so much!!

Rajan

For India’s ‘rat catchers,’ stigmatization undermines the self-esteem vital to learning.

‘The higher-caste students tell us that we smell bad,’ one girl said. Another added: ‘The ridicule we face prevents us from coming to school and sitting with higher-caste children.’ These girls from the hamlet of Khalispur, near the city of Varanasi, belong to the Mushara or ‘rat catcher’ community of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India.

Despite an entitlement to receive a stipend, midday meals and uniforms, few Mushara girls attend Khalispur’s government primary school. ‘We are forced to sit on the floor,’ one girl said. ‘The desks and benches in the classroom are meant for the children from the higher castes.’

Source: Global March against Child Labour

Education systems in many of the world’s poorest countries are now experiencing the aftershock of the global economic downturn.

The 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, released on 19 January, argues that the crisis could create a lost generation of children whose life chances will have been irreparably damaged by a failure to protect their right to education.

He tirelessly visits school classes in his town and talks to the students and teachers about India, Sarnath and BSS. Obviously, he does so with a lot of heart and conviction, because it has resulted in amazing funds being raised in Etne.

Last year, they raised enough money to buy BSS a school bus and this year they will contribute half the cost of the daily meals BSS provides to its 220 students.

Geir makes sure the school children in Etne understand the huge impact their support is having on the Indian students’ lives. He will visit BSS again in March to report back on the progress being made and how his community can continue to help.

BSS sends the teachers, school children and other supporters in Etne a very big and heartfelt Thank You.

A woman holds her malnourished granddaughter in this file photo taken in Mumbai July 25, 2007.REUTERS/Sima Dubey

NEW DELHI (AlertNet) – South Asian nations must promote breastfeeding and focus on better nutrition for under two-year-olds in order to reverse the worst rates of chronically undernourished children in the world, the U.N. said on Wednesday.

According to a new report by the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), more than half of the world’s 155 million chronically undernourished under fives are in South Asia.

The report, “Improving Child and Maternal Nutrition”, said Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan topped the list with 83 million children being fed enough or poorly fed in those five countries.

Daniel Toole, regional director for UNICEF South Asia, said in an interview traditional beliefs and practices as well as the shortage of protein-rich food for infants were mostly to blame.

“Low birth weight babies from young mothers who are forced into early marriages, women who do not exclusively breastfeed and a poor choice of food given to children from the age of six months are all factors,” said Toole by phone from Kathmandu.

Infants are often given contaminated water as a supplement to breast milk or have it mixed in their food, say experts, making them more susceptible to illnesses like diarrhoea which prevents the absorption of nutrients.

According to the report, more than 40 percent of children from each of the five countries in South Asia show signs of nutritional deficiencies such as stunting, which is linked to child mortality and chronic disease in adult life.

Toole said most South Asian governments had good nutrition policies in place, but these had not filtered down to the grassroots level.

Mobile School for Sundel selling Children at Marina Beach by Chennai Corporation scheme Education for all Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) Photo S. Thanthoni

The Hindu: India still has the largest number of illiterate adults in the world, but has made “rapid advances” in cutting down the numbers of school drop outs, a new UN report on education has said.

The Education For All-Global Monitoring Report, released here on Wednesday finds that out of the total 759 million illiterate adults in the world, India still has the highest number.

“Over half of the illiterate adults live in just four countries: Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan,” the report said, adding the progress has been “painfully slow” and threatens to obstruct the Millennium Development Goals.

It said about 72 million primary school age children and another 71 million adolescents are not at school, and on current trends, 56 million primary school age children will still be out of school in 2015, it said.

UNESCO’s top official Irina Bokova said the world body was apprehensive that the financial crisis would cause governments to scale back funding on education.

“With the world’s largest illiterate population, India has been making progress,” the report said.

While in 1985 -1994 just about half of the adults in the country were literate, now the number has gone up to two-thirds. “Since the adult population increased by 45 per cent, this marks a real advance,” it said.

Gender disparities remain deeply engrained, with 28 nations across the developing world having nine or fewer girls in school for every 10 boys.

The report said two-thirds of the total illiterate people are women.
On a positive note, it says that out-of-school numbers have fallen “driven by rapid advances in India”. In the three years to 2007, out-of-school population fell by 8 million.

“Much of the decline took place in India, which reported a fall of almost 15 million in out-of-school numbers in the two years after the 2001 launch of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (universal primary education) programme,” the report said.

It finds that with the exception of China, progress towards halving illiteracy has been “painfully slow,” which will make meeting MDG targets difficult.

“On current trends, the world will be less than halfway towards this goal by 2015. India alone will have a shortfall of some 81 million literate people,” it said.

Ms. Bokova, Executive Director of the UN body for education, warned that the present financial crisis would cause parents and governments to scale back on educating their children.

The Education For All Monitoring Global Report comes out in the backdrop of a financial crisis that is driving millions into extreme poverty. “In short it would create a lost generation… a tremendous cost to society,” she added.

“It could force governments to cut their spending on education and parents to pull their children out of school or simply not to send them,” Ms. Bokova said, at the launch of the report here at the UN headquarters.

The report also finds that low-income countries provide poor quality education and caste system obstructs education in South Asia.

Article from The Hindu | Link