Sujata’s Dream

Hello dear readers,

We’re so glad that you are reading our blog! And hopefully forwarding it to others! We would love to hear from you, so please take a moment if you care to and use the “contact us” link above to let us know what you think of this blog and our project, and what you may want to see or learn more of.

We are still feeling overwhelmed with happiness and excitement about a tremendously generous donation of $2,000 received recently. It meant so much to us! Each donation we receive, not only makes the dream of building the school closer to reality, but represents a vote of confidence in our efforts and intentions. It infuses us with optimism and energy, and gives us hope for the future of the school and the community of Bakrour and Ganga Bigha villages. This is a good place to mention again that every cent of your donations goes directly to the school, not a penny is used for overhead or administrative costs.

If you’re local (Seattle) and would like to volunteer, we can use your help! We can use help creating a simple brochure for the school that will help raise funds, and someone to contact area businesses and organizations to inquire about donations and about linking our blog to their websites. Please let us know if you are interested.

A nifty PowerPoint slide presentation is in the making, with pictures from our visit to the village in January-February 2007, accompanied with stories from and about the village, and soon will be available to be shown anywhere in the community. Do you have a bunch of friends or family who would be interested in our project? Or, know of an organization that would be interested? We would love to come by your gathering to share the presentation and answer any questions.

One important aspect of our project is that our first goal is to get a school building erected that is completely dedicated to the education of the village children. Right now, the school has to borrow space from a communal building that is available for various village meetings. Our long-term goal, once we get the school built, is to ensure that it is an ongoing endeavor, supported by continual donations.

At the present time, the school operates on a shoestring, occasionally getting donations from visitors to the village who come to see the stupa where, as Buddhist legend has it, a young girl from the village named Sujata met the Buddha with a bowl of milk and rice after his many years of fasting. One of these visitors a few years ago came to the village and discovered the school.   She made a one-time donation she earmarked for uniforms for the students. When you look at the pictures of the students in this blog, you will notice that many of them are wearing light blue shirts and striped ties. These are the uniforms this generous donor provided with her one-time donation. As a point of interest, in any Indian school, the uniforms are, well, uniform—all light blue shirts with striped ties.

The uniforms were donated to the school a few years ago, so they are passed down as the years pass by. Of course, you probably noticed that not every student is wearing a uniform. But uniforms are not priorities for the Trustees right now—building the school is what they see as most important in the short-term. Then, developing a donation base, which will ensure that there will not be lapses in funding for the basic operation of the school—electricity, teachers’ salaries, school supplies, and hopefully a lunch program, is the long-term goal.

To end poverty through literacy remains the focus. It is wonderful to have such dedication to this goal on the part of the Trustees, who started the school in 2001 and remain as administrators of it on a completely volunteer basis. Their belief in the reality that these children will not have a future without literacy fuels our passion to help them make this happen, and make sure that the school has ongoing donations to keep it going and growing.