Shrestha is dedicated to helping impoverished children lead healthy, fulfilling lives and reach their full potential into adulthood. We work with children and their families living in an established slum area on the outskirts of Jaipur, in the desert state of Rajasthan. We provide formal and informal education, vocational training and support with nutrition and health.
People in the slum area do not have a fixed job. Instead, they'll do garbage collection, shoe polishing, begging and lots of similar work to try to generate an income. They generally do not earn enough money to fulfil their daily needs. Often, parents are not able to provide food and clothing for their children or even medicine when children fall ill.The children want to go to school and study like 'normal' kids, but their parents don't earn enough to send them to a good school.
We believes education is at the heart of improving the children's prospects - not just for the children, but for their parents, too. We see it as equally important to engage with their parents and community leaders in the slum area to help them understand the value of education, as a way to help the whole family's prospects in the long term. Through building relationships with the parents over the past few years, We gained their trust and support.
Shrestha works to break the cycle of poverty that diminishes these children's life chances. Without a good education and vocational training their economic prospects will be as limited as those of their parents, sentencing them and their future children to a similar life of hardship. So Our hope is that they'll head into adulthood equipped with the skills and knowledge to start their own business or find a good job in a company and reach their full potential in society.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
