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Download and print our India site description here BOOK NEEDS: At this time, our schools in India are requesting the following kinds of books: story books, science books, math books, books about sports and recreation, and books about Indian music and Indian art. They need books at all grade levels, ranging from preschool to high school level (ages 5-18).
We are also working with the Dr. Shambhunath Singh Research Foundation, which serves approximately 12,000 poor and vulnerable children in Varanasi who have been victims of child labor. This PowerPoint presentation will introduce you and your students to the topic of modern slavery and explains the Books of Hope program.
In the poorest villages around the ancient Indian city of Varanasi, children in families that are trapped in slavery are children without childhoods–working every day at carpet looms, herding cattle, and performing domestic labor. Now, MSEMVS (Society for Human Development and Women’s Empowerment) is empowering groups of local parents to remove their children from slavery and send them to MSEMVS transitional schools. MSEMVS teachers build the collective strength of villagers so they can challenge the economic and social stranglehold of the moneylenders. They learn about their rights, gain other sources of livelihood, and demand that local officials uphold the law and provide public services like quality schools. Bonded labor is a form of slavery in which landless families with no means of survival take loans from landowners and moneylenders. In return they have to commit themselves and their children to work, often for no pay, for an indefinite amount of time. In this area, people are held in this form of slavery against loans of as little as Rs. 1,000 ($23). Often this money is needed simply to buy food. Although debt bondage is illegal in India, there is little that individual families can do on their own to escape this slavery–or to avoid bringing their children with them into slavery. MSEMVS is working to change deeply ingrained ways of thinking, both in the minds of the poorest villagers as well as among the most powerful, in this very traditional area of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. For generations, there has been a feudal relationship of exploitation between landless laborers and those who use their work. For the laborers, other ways of surviving are hard to imagine, and the personal risks of struggling for change include hunger and violence. India’s laws against bonded labor and child labor seem distant and almost irrelevant, until communities can pull together to assert their rights, guided by a more hopeful possibility for their children.
These transitional schools enable children to complete a condensed five year curriculum in three years so they can catch up with their peers. MSEMVS focuses on making sure the schools function well, with committed teachers. The curriculum is not just about academic progress, but through afternoon vocational training sessions and a persistent focus on human rights, they hope to protect the children from the risks of re-enslavement. Children who attend the schools are normally able to pass the 5th grade examination and enter village schools at the 6th grade level. Thus far, 200 children have passed into formal schools. And, where formal village schools do not already exist, MSEMVS is able to mobilize community members to demand that the government build a functioning school in the village. By developing a long term presence in villages, MSEMVS offers much more than a temporary solution to the child slavery problem: it is able to tackle the causes of vulnerability to slavery among the poor. Click here to learn more about the registration process & timeline! |
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