Gyan Putra - Support for School Children

What we have achieved

The vision of the founders of the association was to build a school and help children, especially girls, to have access to quality education. The school has been built and steadily expanded, as more and more pupils attended the school. Starting with 146 pupils in 2002, the number of pupils had its peak with approximately 1350 pupils in 2014. School buses pick the children of the surrounding villages up in the morning and bring them back home in the afternoon, therefore also children living further away from the school have the chance to attend it.

The school provides education up to 12th class, offering also science and commerce subjects, which is rare in the area. The students have the possibility to finish school with an A-level equivalent certificate, allowing them to attend university. By now many pupils finished school successfully and are studying or attending vocational training. Some of them already completed studies and vocational trainings. Most of the students are working very hard to get good results and are extremely thankful about the opportunity given to them.

Probably the most important achievements for us are the facts that comparatively many girls visit the school, about 30 percent of the students are girls, as well as the fact that the standards in education continuously increases in our school, providing our pupils with quality education, which is not that common in the rural areas of India.

What we are doing

The main task of the association after building the school is to keep the school running. This means that the association covers the (main part of the) costs of the school, includes the salaries for the teachers, janitor, cleaning staff and cleaning supplies, as well as the maintenance and repairing costs for the building (school and Swastika (hostel)), the classrooms, specialised classrooms and the entire interior. Thus, we provide a learning environment for pupils, which otherwise would have to go to other local schools.

The Gyan Putra scheme also ensures that none of the girls attending the school and boys from poor families have to pay any school fees (the children, who benefit from the Gyan Putra scheme are chosen by the majors of the surrounding villages and the school principal). This contributes to the comparatively large number of female pupils, ensuring the promotion of female education.

In order to keep the school running and thus ensuring quality education for many pupils, who otherwise might not have access to proper education, the association depends on donations. These come from members of the association (70 Euros per year) or school sponsors (85 Euros per year) and single donations which we receive from all over the world. To promote our project, we regularly sell self-made products and T-shirts, and inform people on yoga seminars about the project.

Our ideas for the future

Our wish is to keep the school running and thus enabling children access to proper education. Furthermore, our wish is to keep the number of pupils steady or even increase it, if donations allow this. We wish to spread the word about our project in more parts of the world, making it better known and attracting more people who are willing to help us in numerous ways. A strong wish of course is to steadily increase the number of female students, to give them the chance for a more self-determined independent life. We might just be a small association, but we have the chance to give hundreds or even thousands of children the opportunity for a more self-determined life, a life with better chances for financial security and a life without illiteracy.

"Literacy arouses hopes, not only in society as a whole but also in the individual who is striving for fulfilment, happiness and personal benefit by learning how to read and write. Literacy... means far more than learning how to read and write... The aim is to transmit... knowledge and promote social participation."

UNESCO Institute for Education, Hamburg, Germany