With the end of March came the end of one class and the start of the next across India. For us at BSS, this meant that seven of our students are about to begin the twelfth grade! We can hardly believe that our seventh graders have grown up so fast. As they tell Rajan, they could never have accomplished so much without the support and hard work of BSS’s teachers and supporters. Instead, like their parents, they would be married or soon-to-be-married, and career options would include labouring in the fields for less than $2 a day, pedalling a cycle rickshaw, or doing housework.

Now their world has expanded. In the Indian school system, students specialize in their high school years. The students in 12th grade have selected “streams” of study, which include Arts (History, Social Sciences, Music); Science (Physics, Chemistry, Math, Biology); and Commerce (Management, Accounting, Business Studies). Three of the 12th graders have chosen Arts, three are in Science, and one is studying Commerce. The Arts stream includes Pankaj, Shiv, and Balwant. Balwant has decided to use his education to pursue a career in hotel management. When school is out, he spends time in the Sarnath Cafe with Sukhdev, who has taken him under his wing, to learn about working in and managing a restaurant.

Vicky, in the Science stream, has chosen to specialize in Biology with the goal of becoming a doctor. With his remarkable combination of kindness, determination, and brains, Vicky has a good shot at achieving this—quite an unbelievable but well deserved prospect, since he went against his parents, who wanted him to work for money, in continuing his education. Vicky would walk 3 miles with his two yonger siblings to BSS every day when he was younger. Satwant and Amit are focusing on math to prepare themselves for a degree in engineering. Finally, Brajesh is the lone wolf preparing himself for a career in Business, a popular choice amongst India’s youngest generation.

The thought of college next year is both exhilarating and daunting! In the second part of the upcoming school year (2014), all of the 12th-grade students will take board exams to determine where they will be qualified to go to college. We will be doing our homework to locate scholarships for these highly deserving and unbelievably transformed young people. Your words of encouragement and support will bring them great confidence!

Number of Middle School Students by Class (2012-13)

CLASS 12 (2013-14) Streams

CLASS 11 (2013-14)

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Sarnath Cafe & Saini Guest House, a social enterprise owned and operated by the Saini family and located next to BSS, was renovated last year for three months and re-opened in August. While the menu remains the same, the restaurant and kitchen underwent extensive upgrades. As a socially focused business, the profits from the restaurant (as well as its kitchen facilities) help support the school. We hope that this investment will contribute to BSS’s long-term sustainability. While we’re certainly biased, we believe that it’s the best restaurant in Sarnath (and possibly one of the best in Varanasi).

What’s in store for the future? Four guest rooms above the cafe were finished this past month and are now ready for business. While simple, they are nicely appointed; each has a bath, hot water, and AC in the summer. The rooms are intended to host both BSS volunteers and visitors.

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Often refered to as the oldest living city on earth, Varanasi 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 nearly 300 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.

Leaky 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 it’s 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 and hate and very month they visit the untouchable 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.

The post John Holman Talks About BSS appeared first on Buddha's Smile School.

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

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Preethi is a 12 year-old girl from class 3 in BSS. She lives with her widowed mother in the leprosy colony in Rajghat,Varanasi. Without a male figure at home, they are vulnerable, unsupported and have met with some dangers in the past.

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

The post Baby Steps Lead to Big Changes at BSS appeared first on Buddha's Smile School.

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.

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A friend of BSS based in New York sent an alphabet book made by her students, who drew scenes of their city for each letter. Ice cream trucks, Jamaica (Queens), and ‘Yes We Can’ were just some of these beautiful drawings.

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

The post Connecting with New York appeared first on Buddha's Smile School.

Thanks to a very kind laptop donation, Buddha’s Smile School students are learning how to use computers. Here, the fifth grade students learn some of its basic functions in an introduction session.

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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

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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

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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.

The post Reaching the marginalized appeared first on Buddha's Smile School.