Baragora, Purulia, West-Bengalen
In Baragora, a small village near Purulia in the west of West Bengal, lives the indigenous Santhal community. Like many minority groups, they too face discrimination and disadvantage. The Santhal people living here are distinguished not only by their culture but also by their own language. The children therefore learn the village’s own language and consequently face great difficulties in gaining entry to state schools, which, although available in sufficient numbers, teach in Bengali, the regional language. To provide children and young people with career prospects, AGAMEE 2020 is establishing a pre-school in the village where very young children are prepared for entry into state schools through play, and is organising extra tuition in mathematics and English (coaching) for older children before and after regular school hours. In this way, the children and young people receive the support they need to avoid ending up in the slums of the big cities. The demand is so high that the capacity of the school building and the resources have now been exhausted and have had to be expanded.
Since 2020, 38 children have been taking part in the coaching class. There is high demand from younger children, but we have reached our capacity limits. Since May 2024, childcare for pre-school children has been provided in the courtyard of an adjacent private building.
AGAMEE also promotes cultural education among children and young people. Through dance classes featuring traditional Santhal dances, as well as theatre workshops and sporting events, the organisation helps to boost young people’s self-confidence and preserve their cultural roots. It also provides a platform for addressing important social issues and problems such as child marriage and violence (photo courtesy of AGAMEE).
Gobardanga, West-Bengalen
The school in Gobardanga, north-east of Kolkata, was founded in 1994 and is one of the oldest AGAPE schools. All AGAPE schools in India are run independently by the Indian project partner AGAMEE. Here in Gobardanga, the school primarily supports pre-school children from poor families. They are also provided with a hot lunch at the school. In 2024, the building, which was in need of renovation, was refurbished and modernised with funding from AGAPE so that courses for young people, such as English, sewing and computer classes, can also be offered in the rooms outside school hours. As part of this, the sanitary facilities were brought up to a hygienic standard and the school playground was redesigned. Outside school hours, this serves as a meeting place for the children and young people of the village.
The children are prepared for school through play. In Gobardanga, the children’s artistic abilities are also encouraged through art and drama classes.
(Left: Children receive one hot meal a day. Right: The school building’s inauguration plaque from 1994.)
Goaljani, Bangladesch
The school in Goljani is one of AGAPE’s oldest projects in Bangladesh and has already enabled many children from Goljani and the surrounding villages to enter state schools by providing them with a basic education in reading, writing and arithmetic. For many years, the school was funded independently by AGAPE Bangladesh. Now, however, a renovation requiring significant funds is due, so we wish to critically assess the need for this facility first.
In the village of Goljani, it was discovered after the school was established that the groundwater was contaminated with arsenic. Consequently, AGAPE’s first deep well was constructed right next to the school. It continues to supply arsenic-free water to this day. As the school is located on the outskirts of the village and only a few households have access to clean water without having to travel long distances, we constructed another deep well in the centre of the village in 2019.
Boarding school for Tibetan children in Nepal
In 2022 and 2023, we supported the Tibetan Year 1 students at the school near Ghiling in the Upper Mustang Valley in Nepal through sponsorship schemes. This school is run by the Patta e.V. association and the Nepalese non-governmental organisation Maitri-Ratna. It enables the children to stay with their families rather than having to be sent to a boarding school in distant Pokhara. We saw the quality of the school for ourselves during a visit in 2022, and although the classrooms could not yet be heated at that time, the children were provided with hot meals and excellent teaching.
The conflict between Tibet and China has been simmering for many years. The border is now closed, and Tibet is politically part of China. Since then, no further projects have been possible there. As early as the 1950s, many Tibetans fled to neighbouring Nepal. A favoured route was the Mustang Valley. Today, a great many Tibetans still live there in their villages, but also in the towns, where they are, however, mainly housed in refugee camps. There they remain among themselves, as they are not integrated by the Nepalese government. The Patta e.V. association from Kassel, founded by Katrin Jäger and Tenzin Chomphel, has established a school for Tibetan children in Upper Mustang. Tenzin himself comes from Ghiling, the village where the school is located.
The school provides education for around 100 children from Ghiling and the surrounding villages up to Year 8. This allows them to stay close to their families rather than attending a boarding school in the distant city of Pokhara. The standard of education at the small school is very high, meaning the children leave with above-average grades. Some of the former students now work as teachers at the school. Others go on to further education in the nearest town, Pokhara, or abroad after leaving school. Some – like Tenzin – then return to help the region, which lacks infrastructure. Over 20 years ago, he renovated the existing dilapidated school, a considerable achievement given that building materials had to be transported into the valley by horse for days on end. The current road – if you can call it that – is only a few years old and can only be accessed by jeep (picture on the left).
Tenzin has also leased a plot of land near the school and planted an apple orchard (picture on the right). The harvest currently helps to cover the school’s running costs. However, as the trees are still very small, the harvest is not yet sufficient to make the school self-sufficient. In future, however, the apple orchard is intended to fully finance the school’s upkeep.
We have decided to allocate the earmarked sponsorship donations to this school in 2022 and 2023, and have taken on the entire Year 1 class as our sponsored students for these two years. We will remain in contact with Patta and renew our support as required. In this context, we intend to provide support in the form of a prototype solar-powered heating system for the school building.
Students in the Year 1 class supported by AGAPE e.V. (one child is absent; photo by Katrin Jäger, Patta e.V., 2022).
Further information on this project can be found at https://www.patta-ev.de/ and http://maitri-ratna.org/index.php.
Prospects for Roma children in Romania
There is a high proportion of Sinti and Roma people in Romania, and they are often systematically disadvantaged. To give young people from Sinti and Roma families a better chance in life, the Heidelberg-based association A.I. Cuza is committed to providing them with holistic support through extracurricular activities that include vocational training opportunities, with the aim of boosting the children’s self-confidence.
“Agape – Helping People Help Themselves” is supporting the Al. I. Cuza Society in a youth engagement project (the Buduhala Project), which aims to integrate Roma children into society.
The children and young people come from disadvantaged backgrounds, drop out of school and, without any formal qualifications, have little chance of success in the job market. "The association has set up a workshop where young people have the opportunity to learn traditional trades such as basket weaving or woodcarving. To be accepted here, they must prove that they attend state school regularly. As an incentive to attend vocational school, they are offered a snack; clothing and financial assistance for the family are provided from the proceeds generated by the sale of goods produced here. The students are taught the craft by two master craftsmen from the village, three days a week, for three hours in the afternoon" (Buduhala Project).
(Left: the children are learning to weave baskets. Right: hand-carved cutlery hangs from the ceiling)
This project is now running independently or is being supported by other organisations. Over the coming years, we plan to ‘join forces’ with this project by offering computer and sewing courses. We are currently looking for suitable instructors for these courses.