Children


Rosy’s Story

Rosy is nine-years old and has been a model student at Buddha’s Smile School since she was four. Her story like many other children of Varanasi’s über-poor is one of exploitation, neglect and abuse. Rosy lives at a beggar community in Varanasi’s Cantonment area with her fourth stepfather. Her mother died from kerosene burns. This more…

Gunja wins first prize

“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. more…

Children who are forced to beg

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 350 of Varanasi’s untouchable more…

Living with stigma in India

‘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 more…

Reaching the marginalized

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 more…

Thank you Geir Davidsen & thank you Etne, Norway

BSS couldn’t exist without it’s many supporters from all over the world. So often, it starts with a person visiting Sarnath and meeting Rajan at BSS. And that’s exactly what happened with Geir Davidsen from Etne in Norway. He decided to help and created a fund-raising wonder by inspiring people in his community, especially the more…

Thank you Lisa & Phillip, Donna & Debbie

Lisa and Phillip, thank you for supporting our art classes, Pankaj’s Dream! Without you, we would not have been able to continue them. Your gift was a godsend to us, and we are grateful for it! To our angel Donna Peter, our most heartfelt thank you for your recent extra support that provided blankets to more…

Underprivilaged Children must be given Special Care

Various studies have revealed that poverty can be reduced by sending children from India’s disadvantaged groups to schools instead of sending them to work. If a child is in school, adults of his/her family will get work from where the child used to work. When the child of family goes for work then, adults of that family generally sit idle and the wages earned by the children are ill spent by their family. The employers prefer to engage children on work rather than adults so that they have to pay less wages to children. In this way children are exploited.

India’s children and the Class Struggle

Fifty years into Independence, India’s children have little to celebrate: 6.3 crore (63 million) of them are still out of school. This despite the constitutional directive urging all states to provide “free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years”. The Constitution envisaged fulfilling this promise by 1960. Yet, if present trends continue, India is still 50 years away from reaching the goal.