Helping Elsewhere

Despite India’s economy growing at a rate of knots, most people work long hours and are not highly paid. Many basics of life that we take for granted, like medical care or education, have to be paid for. Only primary schooling up to the age of around eight is Government funded as a whole – after that only schools that reach defined target standards get any Government help at all.

After a long fundraising campaign by Juze, one of the village elders, and a few other villagers, the local school has had a new building donated by a local lady and her new husband who now live abroad. They returned to Mandrem earlier this year to be married and she wanted to pass on some of her new found success to her home community. They now have a lovely school building but, as yet, little equipment or books to go inside.

The school is run by the local Catholic Church which currently has to fund everything, including the teachers’ salaries, by donation. The teachers are paid just enough to cover their expenses – about 2000 rupees a month, which is approximately £50.

A lot of the staff who look after us when we stay in Goa have children who attend this new school so we feel we are directly helping the people we know. Each family must pay 500 rupees (£6) a month per child, which is not a lot by our standards – but some of these people only earn about twice that a month, so it is a big commitment to send kids into education especially if you have more than one.

The task is now to help them reach the next level…