Support living expenses of children in a shelter home

Impact

**"I don't want to be very rich or very poor. I just want to be able to take care of myself," says Dhanya (name changed).**Dhanya lives in a shelter home in Bangalore. She was born in Andhra Pradesh. **Her father had abandoned them before she was even born.** He mother was the sole breadwinner. However, things started getting hard when her mother started getting epileptic attacks. As their village didn't have access to proper medical facilities, they were forced to migrate to Bangalore.This put her education in peril. After a few months in Bangalore, her mother meet a social worker who enrolled her in a shelter home. **Dhanya lived in that home for a year while studying kindergarten, however for unknown reasons she had to leave the place.**That's when she moved into the **Make a Difference shelter homes. Convinced that this was a safe place for Dhanya, her mom enrolled her.** She remembers that the sisters gave her snacks and showed her to her room.She went on to study from 1st grade to 4th grade in Kannada medium. She wanted to get into English medium and after a year of hard work, managed to do so in 5th grade.**It was that summer that Dhanya was going to meet her father for the first time but before she could reach he passed away unexpectedly.**When she went to his funeral she found out that he had remarried and met her half-siblings. This incident strongly affected her.Despite being uprooted more than once Dhanya continues to be forward looking. **She is now in college and is working and looks forward to have an independent life. She wants to become an journalist or an architect and make her mother happy.**Children like Dhanya need support from you to fulfill their ambitions.**You can help vulnerable children across shelter homes in India dream of a better future and stress free life. You can donate so that they can get a safe shelter, and care. You can give with confidence because every program listed is [GIVEASSURED](https://www.giveindia.org/giveassured).**

About The Program

MAD Holistic Child support program works to provide shelter and education to homeless children from vulnerable backgrounds. This program has shown great impact over the last 3 years. With the intervention, the number of youth going to universities in the partner shelter homes of Make A Difference has gone up from around 20% to close to 78%.Donations to this program will be used to cover the shelter expenses related to providing quality academic support like living expenses and hostel fees. MAD works with children in orphanages and shelter homes across India such as Coimbatore, Bhopal, Nagpur, Cochin, Trivandrum, Mangalore, Lucknow, Vellore, Hyderabad.These children have been abandoned from families and are placed with shelter homes in their cities. The aftercare support works with youth beyond the age of 18 transitioning out of shelter homes providing higher education and career counselling support to pursue viable careers. MAD directly pays for university fees after a formal scholarship agreement signed by the beneficiary with MAD. All the details of such transfers along with originals bills are filed for reference and available upon request.Transitional Readiness and Aftercare enables children to build their career paths that are in sync with their interests and is aimed at those who are poised to pass out from shelter homes. This is a volunteer driven system. At an average every youth under the programme is associated with a minimum of 3 volunteers. One of the volunteers is compulsorily a part of the Make a Difference Fellowship programme and is inducted and trained thoroughly around the nuances of the programme through a 4 day Training and Development conference. Apart from this, the volunteers are a part of an on-going Fellowship curriculum for the entire course of their fellowship.Shelter homes are designed to provide safe spaces to youth at risk, up to the age of 18. As youth move out of these shelter homes, a majority of them move back into the marginalized parts of the society. By pairing them with a spirited volunteer, called a Wingman, we motivate, inspire and facilitate their journey towards an independent and sustainable life. Much like an elder brother or sister, the Wingman becomes a trusted advisor, friend and a guide for their kid; from finding internships, to procuring certain legal documents, a wingman runs post to post along with their child, making these processes possible.Over 90% of the children successfully pass their 10th standard. Where children progress into class 11 and 12 the program provides more intensive one-to-one mentoring for a minimum of 2-3 hours a week, supported by placement into University where possible or jobs where more appropriate. The mentor additionally engages a host of academic support volunteers (ASVs) who provide additional teaching support for up to 8 hours a week if the individual needs academic support, assuming the shelter is willing to provide access. Mentors also aim to interact with the parent of the child (where there is one) up to 6 times a year to ensure buy in and support. Alongside this they are also provided professional career counselling based on which an appropriate future career path is determined, and the mentor also provides support for documentation and admissions/job placements as needed.Some of the indicators collected to track the progress of the project are: - 12th Std Grades- No. of active scholarships awarded- % of youth who scored 60% or more in their year-end exams - % of youth who continued on to Higher Education (University) - % of youth who successfully moved to second year of higher education- Stable housing post shelter- Progression to career oriented work- Financial stability- Earning Threshold- Fundamentals of literacy and numeracy- Confidence and self-esteem- Core life and social skillsWhen you donate to this program you will help abandoned children living in shelter homes get access to safe living while getting an education that can change their life.

About The NGO

Make A Difference (MAD) is a youth driven, non-profit organisation working to ensure equitable outcomes for children in orphanages and street shelters. Registered as a non-profit in 2006, Make A Difference reaches out to over 3,460 children in 67 shelters across 23 cities in India, through a highly efficient 3,822 strong volunteer network. Volunteers commit a year and spend between 2 and 10 hours every week mentoring, teaching and interacting with children in order to ensure that they get the support and care they need during childhood.Their aim is to ensure that even the most vulnerable children in shelters are able to realize equitable outcomes and that they are able to live a life free from exploitation, with a capability of managing emotional and financial life crises.