India

Darjeeling

Community ownership through proactive partnership - Collective Voices

Collective Voices, co-funded by Loreto Family International, was launched in Panighatta, Darjeeling, on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2009. The goal of the project is to create a model “Woman-Youth-Child Friendly Community” whereby women, youth and children are helped to participate in the planning process in their community and have access to education, health and nutrition.

Community ownership through proactive partnership is key to this project. The target is that in three to five years the community will be empowered to make their own decisions regarding their development and access the government schemes available to them

Read more about Collective Voices 

Darjeeling Mary Ward Social Centre 

Building sustainable communities

We are funding development projects in Darjeeling and Nepal that will make a sustainable difference to the community by training and increasing the number of teachers in the area and by providing opportunities for the children of people on low-incomes, such as tea plantation workers and stone-breakers, to be educated.

Project activities include:

• School teacher training
• Barefoot Teacher Training*
• Back to school program for disengaged students
• Community micro-credit groups
• Hostel for children from far flung villages
• Maternal and child health programs
• Adult education for women

We are able to assist these projects in partnership with Loreto Family International and generous individuals.

 
The Loreto Tea Plantation Village School, Panighatta

Education is vital in the Panighatta Tea Estate so that the options for employment for young people extend beyond exploitative tea garden labour or being trafficked into larger cities in India or abroad.

The Loreto Sisters are striving to make the Loreto Tea Plantation Village School a resource centre for the whole Panighatta tea garden community, extending education beyond the school walls.

MWIA recently provided funding to carry out these vital activites to help improve the school:

• employ and retain more teachers
• deliver an important midday feeding program
• subsidise the costs of fees, uniforms and books for its 450 students
• extend the school to year 12 (currently caters for grade prep to year 10)

The improvements made with the use of these funds can allow the school to be properly registered with the West Bengal Department of Education and to attract funding from local sources such as the Tea Board of India and the West Bengal Minorities Commission. In this way, the school can become sustainable.

Mary Ward International Australia would like to thank Loreto College Marryatville and Loreto College Normanhurst for their generous donations. On receipt of these funds, Sr. Monica Affonso ibvm, Loreto Darjeeling Regional Leader said, ‘I am just overwhelmed by the goodness of people and their readiness to support a cause.’

Kolkata

Providing opportunities for at-risk youth

We are funding projects in Kolkata that provide economic opportunities to young people who would normally be living on the streets. The projects cover Entally, Shillong, Umphyrnai, Satarda and Sealdah.  

• Barefoot Teacher Training*
• Teacher leadership training for village youth
• Income generation and skills training
• Technical and vocational training of young women
• Hostel for school children from remote villages
• Community micro-credit groups 

"We feel happy to see a change and all this happened because of your support"
Sr Euphima, Kolkata

* The term ‘barefoot’ follows the principle that “we only need our feet to walk and the shoes are additional”. It is intensely practical (foot) and omits all excessive and unnecessary theories (shoe). The training in teaching aids is linked to the person’s environment, enabling the trainees to create their teaching aids from whatever is available in their local surroundings and depending on the children’s learning needs. They can still teach even if under a tree or in the slums and with limited resources.

Capacity Building for Development

MWIA are supporting the Mary Ward Development Centre in Sealdah to carry out a project entitled “Capacity Building for Development”. The aim of the project is to support the Loreto Schools in Kolkata, some of which are among the most privileged and well-resourced in India, to become resource centres for the poorest in Indian society.

The Mary Ward Development Centre is providing training for teachers and staff in management, technical skills, planning and professional and critical analysis which will help programmes grow, thrive and have long-term impacts. 

Thirteen training courses have been held, attended by 301 teachers and staff. This included a two day seminar on Development held in February 2010 for Loreto Principals which resulted in plans-of-action for many of the Loreto Schools. Topics covered in training sessions included hidden domestic child labour; human rights education; Rainbow Homes; micro-credit; in-service teacher training; international funding and proposal writing and social work practice. In June 2010, a two day seminar was held in which to finalise initial development plans. 

MWIA is able to assist these projects in partnership with Loreto Family International and other generous individuals. Entally and Sealdah also receive support from Loreto Marryatville, Loreto Ballarat and the Parents Association of Loreto Normanhurst, as well as from international non-government and philanthropic organisations.

Find out more about these projects