Objective of the project

To finance the construction of a cost-effective multi-functional primary school building for 300 children in a rural Indian village called Belsar (Uttar Pradesh).

WHO ARE WE?

We are World Without Obstacles (WWO), a small NGO and the only one working with children in Belsar, a rural village in Gonda District, a so-called backwards area in Eastern Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) in India. Our mission is to support the development of deprived communities, improve education, address public health, sanitation and environmental concerns and promote inter-cultural understanding around the world through cultural exchange, volunteer work and spiritual activities. In the last 6-7 years WWO has initiated and executed several successful projects. Achievements can be found on our website and in our annual (audited) reports.

How did it start?

It all started 2 years ago when Anna, a volunteer from The Netherlands who works and lives in India, visited the Gurukul Children Academy in Belsar together with Bharat, founder of WWO.

The Gurukul Children Academy was initiated in 2006 as a primary school by two individuals in Belsar, Mr Pawan Kumar Pandey and Mr Ravinder Kumar Pandey. They registered the school with the State Government of U.P. and started with around 30-40 children up to fifth standard in a very basic rented property consisting of a few brick rooms without electrician or sanitation facilities. In the meantime the school has grown to about 300 children up to eighth standard.

Anna was impressed by the efforts made by the school Principal and his team to educate children in very bare circumstances. At the same time she was awfully shocked by the fact that there were no sanitary facilities other than a hand water pump. She personally donated some money to build a simple compost pit toilet facility for the kids. This was a relief especially for the older girls who often used to drop out of school. Anna also initiated a campaign to raise funds with friends and family to make a vision for the future together with the Principal, WWO and the Future Building Council. This resulted in an architectural design for a new school building.

Need for a new school building

The current building became much too small to accommodate all 300 children. Therefore a tin-roof was constructed to extend the class rooms. The children are now taught in the open air all year round, with temperatures shooting up to nearly 50 degrees Celsius in summer and dropping as low as 3 degrees Celsius in winter. This often results in cutting down class hours because children are neither properly protected through clothing nor building facilities.

The owner of the current building intends to rent it out to local shop keepers in the near future. Last year the Principal negotiated a final one year extension of the rental contract for the current school building. The contract will certainly be terminated by the end of this school year (June 2014).

Context / background

Although it is a private school, Gurukul Children Academy follows the public school curriculum but with a higher level of engagement. Teachers regularly test children to ensure that they obtain a decent level of understanding of Hindi, English and other subjects. This ensures a higher quality of education in comparison to most other (government) schools in the area. Feedback from local secondary schools regarding the level of knowledge and skills acquired by children who graduated at Gurukul Children Academy is positive. The fact that the amount of school children is growing despite limited school facilities indicates that parents appreciate the quality of education at this private school.

Gonda District is officially classified as educationally, economically, socially and medically backwards. It has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the country. World Without Obstacles cooperates with the District government and reaches out to private and government schools as well as to the community at large in Belsar Block. Our aim is to improve livelihood by increasing the level of education and raise awareness about health & hygiene issues.

WHY DO WE NEED YOUR HELP RIGHT NOW?

We have achieved so much through donations from an incredible network of family and friends for a vision for the future and an architectural design for the new school, but now we are facing our biggest challenge: to construct the school building. This goes beyond our financial capacities and we urgently need your help.

If we fail, the children will be without a school facility by the end of this school year. Without education their fates are likely to remain bleak. If we succeed, we will keep their dreams alive and the children will have a real future. Thus, they will maintain an opportunity to break out of the cycle of poverty.

Check Facebook for more pictures of the Gurukul Children Academy

WHAT WILL YOUR DONATION BE USED FOR?

The Future Building Council has supported us with an architectural design for the new school building that meets all the legal requirements to make the school a suitable place for education. We only need money to BUILD it.

A suitable piece of land from the Principal’s family property in Belsar is readily available as school premises. WWO decided to lease this land for a period of 30 years (with possibility to extend this period). The school building will be financed and owned by WWO but it will be rented out to the Gurukul Children Academy School Board. They will be held responsible for managing and maintaining the property under supervision of WWO.

Over the years the school Principal saved (limited) funds towards constructing a new school building. The amount was however just enough to build a boundary wall and for evening out the land to prepare for construction. This was recently completed at their own cost and with free hours of labor offered by parents of the children who are masons by profession.

We are now READY to start constructing the building. Even though the completion of the whole project will require around 66,000 US$, we are fundraising here for only 30,000 US$. We are not asking for the full budget since we have decided to focus on the first floor only - phase I. This comprises of four class rooms and one office - WITHOUT any sanitary facilities. Notably, this amount is a BARE MINIMUM necessary to continue providing education to the kids in the next school year. However, for an additional 6,000 US$ we can also add a complete toilet block with septic tank - phase II. On the left you can see the phase-wise construction plan of the school building.

For the children to have the best conditions for acquiring their education, the entire building is needed. The last two phases will result in additional class rooms and other attributes such as a play ground and rainwater harvesting. Altogether, the two-floor school building is designed to accommodate 300 children. So with another 30,000 US$ for phase III and IV we can realize the whole construction plan. This would benefit the children directly!

Estimated construction costs according to the Future Building Council

IMPORTANT: we decided to focus on realising phase 1 by the end of this school year (2013-2014), so our fundraising target is currently set at 30,000 US$ only. If we raise more, we can build more!

The school project can also be divided in terms of technical costs necessary to complete the entire building complex. These can be seen in the following table:

Other ways you can help:

- Please spread the word! Post this campaign on your Facebook page, send your friends emails, talk to everyone about it and encourage people to give. After all, it is Christmas time – A time to GIVE!

- Organise a small fundraising event in your area and let us know. We will post this on our Facebook page and Indiegogo profile so that everyone can see that - like ourselves - our friends and family are also putting all their efforts into this campaign. 

- Endorse WWO and support us continuously with a recurrent donation on a monthly or yearly basis. Click here for bank details

- We are always looking for motivated volunteers to help us directly in Delhi and Gonda. Click here for contact details

Quotes by children of Gurukul Children Academy:

"I love my school because it is an ideal school" - Roshne Gupta, class 5
"I feel very good in the school" - Vivek Kumar Chauhan, class 5
"Knowledge is power" - Sadhna Jaiswal, class 6
"Education is very importent" - Radha Jaiswal, class 7