This project provides elementary education for children from villages near Bodhgaya, India. The villagers are very poor, work as farm labourers and are mostly illiterate. The students of Elsa Primary School are the first generation from their villages to receive any education. By supporting their education, you will be helping not only them, but over time, change the culture of the village so that education becomes the norm, rather than the exception.
Many villages in the vicinity of Bodhgaya, Bihar, India have no tradition of education. The residents are mostly illiterate, do not own land to cultivate and their main livelihood is working as poorly paid farm laborers. Given these conditions, it is hard for them to advance from their current state of poverty.
Education offers a way forward. In 2011, the villagers of Bodhgaya expressed interest in their children attending school. Thus, Elsa Primary School began operating with one teacher and thirty students. In 2017, a second teacher was employed and many new students from the village of Karmoni, 15 km from Bodhgaya, started attending Elsa Primary School. In 2019, at the request of parents of the Karmoni students, the school relocated to more spacious premises in Karmoni village.
All the students are very happy attending school, especially the older girls who are in their early teens. They are making the most of the chance to study before they inevitably have to enter arranged marriages in the next few years. As well as providing more opportunities in life for these students, this project will create an ongoing inter-generational culture of education for these villagers.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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