With the sponsorship quota we receive for the boys and girls they have their basic general education, medical attention and an adequate diet guaranteed. For those children that already go to government schools, thanks to the programme, PVS has been able to create a support school; in each one of the villages there is a teacher who assists the children with their homework in the afternoons and helps them learn subjects that are not in the official schools' curriculum, such as drawing. These support schools are provided with educational material as well as sports and play materials and a first aid kit, all of which comes from the Sponsorship Programme. Another of the characteristics of the support schools is that they are open to all the children in each town even if they are not on the sponsorship programme. With this we hope to avoid any discrimination between the children as much as possible.

The rural area of Kolar sees a large number of children from the lowest castes leaving their education early. One of the projects is to guarantee education as a fundamental right to all children without distinction of their caste, as is often the case in India.

In August 2002, we started to construct a new PVS school for 400 boys and girls. During the autumn of 2002, Forkids organised various activities in Spain to collect funds for the building of the school. From the 21st November to the 15 December, 2002, there was an exhibition of paintings, A Look at India, by the artist Mercedes Diogène at the Casa de Cultura in Sant Cugat del Vallès in Barcelona. The Sant Cugat Town Hall also collaborated with a magnificent donation of 12,000 euros. Also to have collaborated in the building and equipping of the school are the Rovira Foundation of Barcelona and private individuals as well as the Europa School of Sant Cugat, the Municipal Music School, the restaurant Tosco, the artist Mercedes Diogène, etc.

Our counterpart in India, PVS, has been working for more than 10 years to create an adequate educational infrastructure. This is the dream and the priority of the groups of women who form this NGO, that was founded by a teacher. The construction of the school building will give an enormous boost to this project, being practically the culminating point. In 2004 we have been working to equip the school, make a well, fence the grounds... The school started its first school year of 2005 to 2006 with almost 300 boys and girls. The reception has been so good that we are already looking for more funds to be able to extend the school with more classrooms. And we can plan these projects thanks to all of you who collaborate.

Savings and Micro-Credit Programmes.- When the self-help groups are initiated, the women who are participating each agree to save around 20 rupees a week (0.48€). They are usually formed by approximately 20 women. With time, they create a capital fund that they themselves manage and administer, lending micro-credits. When any of the women need money they can approach the group to ask for help and they talk over the case: everything works in a democratic way. In India, the repayment of these loans amongst the women is 96%. On seeing this measure of good faith, the Indian government has now passed a law in favour of these groups so that after a year of functioning they can ask for a loan from a bank, the same group acting as guarantor. Up to now this was something that was unthinkable for the people belonging to the lowest castes. They were only able to get loans from more dubious characters whose interest rates of between 100 and 200% often turned the family into little more than slaves, as repayment could quite often require a lifetime of labour. One of the principal objectives of the work of these groups is to improve the lives of their children. And with the sponsorship programme and the construction of the rural school, we are succeeding in making their major priority become a reality.

Micro-credits programme called Women’s Fund.- There are two types of credits. One is from the capital that has been saved by the women and is usually a small amount to pay for medical needs or buy seeds etc. The other type is a rotating capital fund of 12,000 Euros which allows the women and their families to obtain a larger credit loan and therefore allows them to start some sort of economic activity. One of the criteria of these credits is that they cannot be used for family consumption and must be connected to some sort of activity that will generate income for the family.

During 2004-2005, and with the collaboration of the Ayuntamiento de Sant Cugat, 12,000 Euros were invested in micro-credits for activities such as buying cattle or starting up a small business: shop, cattle feed, trading cattle etc.

As the money is repaid it is lent out again to the families on the credit waiting list. With part of the credit repayments the capital fund is enlarged and with the other part a Pension Scheme has been created for the old women and/or handicapped people.

Legal advice for women.- PVS started up an aid programme of giving advice to mistreated women with the help of another local collective. This entity cannot now continue maintaining the collaboration with us and we are looking for a means of being able to carry on with this programme. Women often suffer both physical and psychological mistreatment due mainly to the dowry system, which is also one of the main causes of female suicide. In the rural world they receive very little information, which makes this service so important as being one way of imparting information about their rights and helping them fight for them.

Programme for generating finances.- One of the fundamental goals in our work is that the communities that we collaborate with become self-sufficient and independent so that they can generate their own economic resources without the necessity of looking for aid and relief from outside. With this programme, which is being carried out by PVS, the women have the opportunity of being trained in a trade which will allow them to earn a stable wage and increase the family income. This in turn signifies that they have access to better food, better medical attention, education etc.

At the moment they are doing courses in handicrafts with clay and paints. From these courses, and with the help of the children in the programme, they made cards at Christmas which Forkids successfully sold in Spain. The money collected has been used to buy school materials in India.

Programme to aid elderly women.- We are trying to find the best means of generating financial resources for elderly women. The collective that helps this group in India works on a principal of solidarity. The elderly women who can no longer work and do not have a pension are helped by the groups of women who take it in turns to feed them.

This was the reality before starting the collaboration with Forkids. At present, and thanks to the Micro-credits Programme, a Pensions Fund (Women’s Fund) has been created with part of the money from the repayment of the credit interest on the loans. Almost 30 old women and handicapped people now have access to a pension.

Education and Exchange Programme

Various volunteers from both the medical and educational field have visited the project to offer training and medical assistance to the families. Included in these volunteers have been a midwife, a doctor, a pharmacist, dentists, teachers and monitors. In the rural areas it is extremely difficult to access education and it is very enriching for both parts, the professionals from here and the community there, to be able to exchange knowledge and experiences. The project is also visited by sponsors who, as well as seeing the project and getting to know the children they are helping, also collaborate in the projects and educational activities.

Thanks to the initiative of a group of friends involved in helping this community, Forkids has collaborated with the Hospital de SERA, which is in the heart of a monastery of 4,500 exiled Tibetan monks. At times the monks arrive there and in the neighbouring villages from Tibet in a precarious state of health, and the Hospital looks after them as well as the people who live in the camps that have sprung up around the monasteries.

Currently the Hospital is carrying out programmes to eradicate TB and supply drinking water, and also an environmental project whereby they attempt to eliminate illnesses through a scheme of collecting rubbish and providing a cleaning service in the area that surrounds the monastery.

The SERA Hospital is in Bylakuppe, in the Mysore district of Karnataka.