From Begging to Books in Bodhgaya India

Hi everyone,

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

I hope you all enjoyed the holidays very much!

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 including with the local administrations blessing the booth you can see above in the photograph, right in the centre of Bodhgaya. 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. The police and public have been made aware of   the need to report such activity, and any concerns on the government sponsored toll free number 1098 which we manage in this area.

This is what your donations have done. Because of the need this appeal is still live on Global Giving . The Link is below.

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 themselves, And 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".

Maya ( aged 9 )

Thank you all,

Deepak Kumar

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