From Begging to Books in Bodhgaya Bihar India

Hi Everyone,

My name is Deepak and I am Chairperson  of People First here in Bodhgaya.

Thank you for your kind donations to the project!!!

We still have much work to do  but we were encouraged when a group of foreigners visited Rescue Junction they mentioned the fact that they had not seen any child beggars, in contrast to previous years when there were many.

 Our own surveys have shown over a sustained period the number of child beggars around the temple area has been reduced by over 75% and we have resettled many children into mainstream education, but we are not claiming here we have solved the problem of child begging in Bodhgaya in its entirety, far from it, with your help we aim to ensure our continuing vigilance and action regarding this problem.  But we have made a huge difference. 

I will leave you with a quote from a former child beggar, as told to one of our workers, a liitle girl aged about 8 who we will call Maya (name changed),

"I hated begging, I hated even the people who gave us money because they did not really care, just they wanted to feel good thenselves. I had to give nearly all the money to my 
"malik" ( malik means owner). I felt trapped. Now my Malik has gone away, I am at school, I am learning to read and write, I am no longer afraid".

Because your donations were so generous it has enabled us to employ an extra full time community worker to talk to and support those children on the streets and identify who is using them for revenue from begging.

Thank you all so much, it is said often but believe me you have really made a difference and helped to place a book in a child's hand instead of a coin he or she has to then give away to someone else.

Deepak

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