(Fotos: BGR und Bodhicitta Foundation)

Compassion in Action and Buddhist Global Relief will again support the Bodhicitta Foundation next year with a combined donation of USD 51,000. USD 21,000 from Compassion in Action will again go to the girls' home and community centre project. Here, girls from families affected by violence, poor areas such as slums, and especially Dalit girls, find a safe home. They receive school and vocational training and return this support to their communities as social workers. In the adjacent community center, they are also offered legal advice and self-defense and health courses.

The Food Relief and Organic Farming Initiative is being re-established this year. In the Gadhchiroli area, which has repeatedly been shaken by political conflict, scholarships are being awarded to women to enable them to start their own small businesses; organic farming programs and direct training for female farmers are being implemented, as well as large-scale workshops on women's rights, marketing, website creation, nutrition, hygiene, and business registration.

This will enable more than 9,000 women in the region to benefit from comprehensive aid projects that enable them to build a secure foundation for a self-determined life. All of this is only possible thanks to your donations!

We look forward to the upcoming semi-annual reports, which we will present here at the end of the year.

We have received the Bodhicitta Foundation's semi-annual report and would like to share what has been achieved so far in the current project year through the dedicated work on site.

The following initiatives are currently being implemented in Nagpur: 

  - Girls home with 30 girls

  - 4 study centres for slum children in Peeli Nadi, Nari, Samta Nagar and Bhim

    Sena with 130 children

  - Women’s job training centre with beauty therapy, sewing, computers and English

  - Food programme making 7000 meals per year

  - Legal Advice service manned by volunteers ten hours a week

  - Seven village outreach women’s job training centres, where women

    learn sewing, English and beauty therapy to gain income for their families

  - Sponsoring 55 children for school

  - Health camps and human rights advocacy and awareness raising events

Ayya Yeshe, director and founder, reports:

"Our girls home has 30 residents from all over India, with some girls from Tribal communities in Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, but most from Maharashtra. Our girls are all people committed to their studies. The girls are studying things like social work, nursing, science, stenography, arts, economics, law etc. In their spare time they study social empowerment and job training skills to pay their stay forward with 400hours of social service when they return to their villages with degrees. Some past members of the hostel chose to remain in the city and are now working, some have got government jobs, some work as teachers, lawyers, nurses, physiotherapists and some are now married. Every girl that has enrolled in our girls home left with a university degree and life skills. 

Inflation is very high in India, which meant that in order to pay our staff a living wage, we had to increase their pay.

Climate change is impacting harvests and leading to crop failures. More people have been migrating to Nagpur and trying to educate their children. Due to lack of funding, we have had to turn people away."

Despite the challenges, 1,500 women, 1,000 children and 380 men and boys were able to receive support through the diverse range of assistance offered in the first half of this project year. Two of them speak here and describe the difference the work of Bodhicitta has made in their lives:

Kalyani, 18 years old

"For many years now, Bodhicitta Foundation has sponsored me for school. My mother sold vegetables until recently. She is 41 and was diagnosed with stomach cancer stage 4. She tried to eat, then brought it up. I spent days with the social workers from Bodhicitta Foundation trying to get a diagnosis in government hospitals. They are very depressing places where no one will help you unless you are pushy and patients who have no one to care for them will probably die from the apathy of the staff. My mother died two months ago and now I have no one. Bodhicitta staff admitted me to the hostel and started a legal case against my uncle for my mothers half of the land.. My father sadly drank himself to death a long time ago. I am so devastated, but also relieved that someone is advocating for women and girls. Without Bodhicitta Foundation I would literally be on the street.. I dream of becoming a doctor or a nurse, so that I can treat people better than my mum was treated by the government hospital."

Rakesh, 11 years old

"My mother and father died in an automobile accident. I have 4 sisters and there are 3 of us brothers. I am 11 years old. I was working in a cheap restaurant near Nalanda monastery when I met Ayya Yeshe and told her of my families situation. Ayya admitted 3 of my sisters to her girls home. My brother and I are back in school and in a boys home in Nagpur (where there are better jobs and schools than in Bihar). I was afraid I would have to marry off my sisters as teenage brides as we literally did not have enough money to cover our food bill. I am so relieved we met some compassionate people. To be honest, after my parents death I would lay awake at night worrying how we would survive and often thought of suicide. I just felt totally hopeless. Now I am so grateful, I can’t express it in words."

Girls' home and social work

Around 1.38 billion people live together in India more than in the whole of Africa. As an emerging country with a growing economy, India has made progress in the fight against poverty in recent years, but nutrition is often not secured, especially in the countryside and in the slums of the cities. Causes are increasingly frequent droughts as a result of climate change and in particular the exclusion of women, indigenous population groups and members of the lowest castes and the Dalit, who are still outside the caste system. They suffer from hunger more often, children attend schools less often and they have poorer access to medical care. Girls are still often victims of abuse, human trafficking, prostitution and forced marriage.

In Nagpur, a metropolis in central India in the state of Maharashtra, the Buddhist nun Ayya Yeshe founded the Boddhicitta Foundation, a girls' home with an integrated school that provides 30 girls from poor backgrounds with a safe refuge and school education. In return, after their studies or vocational training, they support the work in the affiliated social work center free of charge.

At 4 locations, 220 poor children from the slums there are currently provided with free meals and receive tutoring. 55 children receive financial support for school attendance. In addition, there is a vocational training center for women in the fields of sewing, computers, beauty care and English and an advice service on legal issues, dealing with domestic violence and sexual abuse, health issues and professional orientation.

MiA has been promoting this wonderful project thanks to the support of our donors since 2021 and also for the upcoming project period from July 2024 to June 2025, we are participating with $15,000 in the continuation and expansion of this exemplary project for sustainable poverty reduction.

In the first half of the current funding period, 1,530 people benefited directly from the funding provided jointly by MiA and BGR in the amount of $48,000 US and another 2,830 indirectly. Difficulties are currently caused by the high inflation in India, which, together with rising wage costs, makes work more challenging. Ayya Yeshe, who lives in Australia, is regularly on site to accompany the work and next year I will also make a first detour to Nagpur as a project sponsor of MiA for India to deepen the partnership through personal contacts.

Text: Simpert Würfl (Project lead for India)

Pictures: Bodhicitta Foundation

Thanks to you, we can continue to operate in India in 2023 and secure the valuable work on site with 12,500 US dollars.

MiA is also working this year with the Bodhicitta Foundation, which was founded by the Australian nun Ayya Yeshe. Together, we support and protect vulnerable girls from disadvantaged families in India in order to protect them from poverty, child marriage and abuse and to provide them with otherwise inaccessible school and vocational training. Most girls come from slums and are saved from human trafficking and prostitution and protected against domestic violence through our help.

This year, the girls' home provides 30 girls from disadvantaged and remote places, especially from the casteless Dalit (formerly "untouchable") and smaller ethnic groups, with food, school and vocational training.

Together we support approx. 3000 people through direct measures in the areas of education, human rights and vocational training. The Bodhicitta Foundation maintains educational institutions in four slums and gives approx. 7000 meals per year to starving children. Our big thanks to you and your support. Please continue to help us!

Text: Olivia Haas

Further information on the situation on site can be found in the reports below.

In 2022, Mitgefühl in Aktion (MiA) has once again supported the work of the Bodhicitta Foundation, an officially recognized charity project established by the Australian nun Ayya Yeshe. This organization helps protect vulnerable girls from disadvantaged families in India, especially those from casteless backgrounds, from poverty, child marriage, and abuse, and provides them with education and vocational training that would otherwise not be accessible for them.  We help protect these girls, most of whom were born in  slums, from human trafficking and prostitution and from domestic violence. Worldwide, every minute 23 girls under the age of 18 are forced to get married against their will. Educating girls is one of the best things we can do to reduce gender inequality,  domestic violence and poverty, and to slow population growth. An educated mother will have fewer children, her children will be better educated themselves, and they are also 50% more likely to survive to adulthood. 

As a direct result of poor sanitation, India still has a higher rate of child malnutrition than sub-Saharan Africa. There are still 55 million girls who would like to go to school but cannot, while around 22% of Indian girls under 18 are already married. 

BF's home for girls currently provides food, education, and vocational training to 30 girls from disadvantaged and remote locations, particularly from formerly so-called 'untouchable' (Dalit) and smaller tribal communities. In addition to this, these activities offer legal assistance and protection to women experiencing domestic violence. 

Buddhist Global Relief and Mitgefühl in Aktion were able to support 3,000 people in 2021 through direct aid in the areas of education, human rights and vocational training. In addition, 8,000 meals per year were served to hungry children. 

The number of people we help has increased ,through the training of an additional 150 social workers for our project's girls' homes. These social workers then return to their home villages and set up women's shelters, vocational training centers for women, and study centers for children. Even though Dalits are still the majority of those we serve, the focus of the work has shifted to support women from different castes.