By Deepak Kumar | Chairperson People First
Hi Everyone,
My name is Deepak and I am Chairperson of People First here in Bodhgaya.
I want to personally thank you for your fantastic response to our appeal "from begging to books in Bodhgaya" It really was a great response and I want you to know it enabled us to expand the scope and scale of the project significantly . From our surveys we can measure a more than 70% reduction in child beggars , with organised group begging almost wiped out locally. We are not claiming our Job is done , of course not there remains much to be done because poverty leads to so much desperation and exploitation. Dozens of Children have rejoined mainstream education.
This is what your donations have done. Because of the need this appeal is still live on GlobalGiving . The Link is below.
https://www.globalgiving.org/microprojects/send-child-beggars-to-school-in-bodhgaya-india/
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,
"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.
We still have much work to do and the appeal is still live because of the great success of the project 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.
Thank you all so much,
Deepak
PLEASE DON"T FORGET THAT ON MAY 13TH EVERY ELIGIBLE DONATION will be matched by Global Giving
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