A Little Bit More about our Dangs Mentor, Help A Child of India
Jayesh takes the reins again this week to gives us a great overview of Help A Child of India, an NGO that has been of great assistance and mentorship as we have worked to develop our programming.
In my previous blog, I have tried to elaborate about our visit to the Dang district. This visit was possible only because of the help of another organization working there, Help A Child of India (HACI). Let me give a brief introduction about Help A Child of India and its initiatives.
HACI is a registered charity that has been working in India for over 40 years on the overall development of families through child centered projects. HACI has been working with the Dangs since 2012 and their programs are focused on the most disadvantaged area of Dangs.
Due to the migratory tradition of the Dangs, education, health and livelihood projects are badly needed to minimize the necessity of migration for future generations. HACI has formed Village Development Committees (VDC) in 21 villages. These VDCs are going to strengthen and motivate village development activities related the education, health, infrastructure, and livelihood.
During our visit, we observed tuition classes for primary school children. HACI has identified students who cannot speak even elementary Gujarati and enrolled these children in before- and after- school literacy classes with the goal of lowering the dropout rate. These classes are taught by recent high school and university graduates of the same village who can speak both Dangi (the students’ mother tongue) and Gujarati. During our talks with teachers, students and community members, we found that students are improving a lot from these classes.
One sad fact that we learned during our visit is that 95% of people living in the Dangs district will never have the opportunity to attend university, due in no small part to the cost of attendance. With this knowledge in hand, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Our Nanubhai Scholars program is the first university scholarship program available to Dangi students and we can’t wait to meet our first batch in June.
To sponsor one of these students, donate now.
To learn more about Help A Child of India, click here
