From grinding poverty to graduation

Thank you for your continuing support.

For all of India’s emergence as an economic power the State of Bihar has double the number of people living in extreme poverty than in the whole of Ethiopia. ( Source Department of International development UK)

Your support is very much needed to change these young peoples lives. Here is a letter for you all,

My name is Santosh and I want to say hello and thank you to you all.

I am a CAPS student and I am living in Delhi studying Spanish. I also get to meet and greet official visitors to People First in Delhi and brush up on my English! I cannot tell you enough how much I realise how very lucky I am to get this chance due to a People First Scholarship.

My family is very poor and were unable to provide with me with a good education and there was only the People First School which offered hope to children like me.

But I want to make my parents proud. Education is not an option for me. It is everything. My life. I will be able to help my whole family in the future.

Without it I cannot have any future and my family who work as hard as they can, will still remain in poverty. Here in Bihar India the minimum wage is just $2.00 or £1.50 a day.

Please help students like me achieve everything beyond our wildest dreams. A decent life ,and an escape from poverty for ever.

Thank you,

Santosh Kumar

Links:

• Our Facebook Page
• Our Website

Hi Supporters and friends!

Time for another update.

First my I express on behalf of our children our hearfelt appreciation for your donations for this important project.

You will have seen personal testimonies from children, explaining how the programme has given them opportunuities they never dreamed possible.

But what exactly is the CAPS scheme , How does it work?

I thought I would use this update to clarify how the scheme works to bring a better understanding of the reach and effects of the project.

Ok, as you probably know CAPS means Children's Academic Personal Scholarships. But children from where? How are they selected? How much assistance do you give?

The aims of CAPS is very close to the mission statement of the Trust, which is,

"Our mission is the bringing of educational opportunity and to promote health and social rights to those to whom such opportunities have previously been denied to poverty family circumstances or oppression".

CAPS does this one child at a time.

It has several different strands.

Education of the Girl Child

Promoting the education of girls by offering fully paid sponsorship to girls living in the local community from very economically disadvantaged backgrounds to enable them to complete their education

A chance for college

Supporting exceptionally bright students through college and University

A residential school scholarship.

Offering a fantastic chance to very bright students from our village school to complete their education to school leaving examination level at class 10.

Students are selected by a panel of teachers, our education director and a former CAPS student. It is a competitive programme, only the very best can secure a CAPS place. Parents are involved in the process.

Ex CAPS students have gone on to be policeman, bank employees, office workers and translators. It has to be remembered, these are children who come from extremely poor backgrounds , living in mud dwellings and who could not even afford a pair of sandals, who had no possessions at all. On employment they voluntarily give 10% of their earnings back into the scheme as a donation in order to help others.

Thank you for helping them

Deepak Kumar

Chairperson

People First  

Links:

• Our Website
• Facebook

Dear Friends,

I am very happy to help write this update for Global Giving with the help of Mr Naresh Kumar the education director of People First.

I come from a small village where  there is no electricity school or doctor, but in the next village People First ran a school and when I had finished my chores in the morning I went there to learn.

The school taught the children a song which had the words," I will help with the animals and in the field every day but please let me go to school to learn"  I used to sing it to my family.

At night I would do extra studies  by the light of a wick lantern.

Soon I was passing my exams in the first position and was recommended by my principal to try for a place on the People First Childrens Academic Personal Scholarship (CAPS) scheme.

My family is very poor we cannot even afford a tile roof so the straw gets damp in the rains, so the chance to go to a private school for a full time residential education was beyond the wildest dreams and hopes for my family.

I was lucky and I got selected, after quite a long process, and two years ago I chose to go to a private school in Bodhgaya, where I study in Class Seven

I want to help my family, I want then to try and use my education to help others. I have the good fortune to be the first in my family to be able to say " I am educated and ready for a whole new future"

Note

This update was based on a series of Interviews with Pinto and some written material translated from Hindi.

Your support really does change lives tremendously,

And Pintos story is quite typical of the CAPS students

Thanks for all your help,

Naresh SIr

Links:

• People First Website
• Our Facebook page