Help build a career of a child or youth who is a Bangladeshi refugee rehabilitated in India after partition, INR 2250

Aapna Janakalyan is committed to educating the girl child in various post- partition refugee establishments of Bengal, all of whom are currently distributed across four rehabilitation colonies under the Sindhanur Rehabilitation Project.

More than 20000 refugees are residing in Sindhanur taluk of Raichur district; their only source of income is 4-5 acres of land provided by Government of India 50 years back. Per capita land availability has reduced while the yield per acre has gone down to any extent. Many families live in hand to mouth situation. Further, they do not fall under any protective reservation in Karnataka. The children are generally sent to schools and after matriculation engage them in driving/ construction works while the girls are married at the age of 14-15 years. Lack of transportation, lack of hostel facility, security to the girls, etc. are some of the reasons for dropping out while the important being poverty. Janakalyan identifies such children/youth from refugee communities and help them with Rs.2000 stipend to pursue their college education at least till they become 18 years old. During 2019-20, Janakalyan has supported many children/ youth with the support of GiveIndia as presented in the chart.

How It Works

Aapna Janakalyan has been diligently working towards its mission to ensure refugee girls get a holistic education. Along with making them confident and self reliant, it will further makes them employable, thus improving their quality of life.

• A team of Aapna Janakalyan approaches various schools to gather information regarding the number of refugee girls completing their 10th standard.

• With a little assistance from the teachers, the girls are segregated based on performance and those with the best performance records are selected.

• The nature of support extended to these girls is decided upon based on certain parameters like level of interest of the pupil and economic status of the families among others.

• The nature and extent of support could be either for accommodation or tuition fee for one term depending majorly on the availability of funds.

• In some cases, the support offered may extend to the subsequent year simply to discourage the student from dropping out due to lack of funds.

Often the help that Aapna Janakalyan provides in introducing the girl to college education, encourages the families of these girls to at the very least allow them to complete the course because they can cite financial constraint as an excuse. In rare cases, parents allow them to pursue higher education or find employment.

Education made it Possible

Ashok, a meritorious student matriculation and intermediate, is son of Shanti Biswas, a refugee-farmer from Rehabilitation Colony of Sindhanur; He faced extreme difficulty in paying his admission fee for his computer education due to sever poverty. Being a refugee-child he did not get the benefits due to Namasudra caste enjoyed in other states.

Ashok learnt that Janakalyan provides education support to such deserving and meritorious students and thus approached for possible support for his admission in computer education. Janakalyan continued its critical support throughout his education period by providing necessary learning materials and motivational supports along with fee while routine costs were born by his parents.

Today, Ashok is the breadwinner of his family and his parents are happily living with him; he earns more than Rs.7500 per month using his computer skill in a private firm which he says more than enough for his family maintenance. He and his parents express gratitude to Janakalyan for their timely support to be what he is today.