Dear donors and friends, Friends for Education International (FFEI), formerly known as Ambedkar Scholarships is in its 6 years of operation and growing leaps and bounds due to your trust, support and generosity. With a strong belief of getting your continued support, we are expanding it to the areas wherever we thing we can help the underprivileged sections of Indian society. For our activities, please visit our website at www.abedkarscholarships.org or www.friends4education.org. In brief, we have currently the following projects:
Regular Scholarships: Scholarships to bright economically backward Dalit children who are bound for college. Each Scholarship costs Rs.5,500 or USD 150. It consists of a minimum of a cash award of Rs.5,000, a biography of Dr Ambedkar, and a certificate of achievement. SCS (Scholarships for Children from Scavenging families): We take the help of gross-root organizations working for them to identify students from these communities. Microloans: Loans range from Rs.3,000 to Rs.7,000 to start small businesses such as vending vegetables, open tea-shops and grocery stores, buy buffalos and pulling carts to carry loads etc. The project is currently in 4 villages and is very successful. Awards: Awards to people who made a mark on the lives of Dalits and other marginalized communities. Award money depends on the donations we receive. This year, we have decided to honor Mr Gaddar, balladeer singer from Andhra Pradesh. Help to Victims: Help to victims of caste atrocities. Dalits are being discriminated every day for some reason or the other. When we come to know of any such ghastly incidents, we appeal for help and deliver the donated money to the victim. Individual Help: Poor but bright children comes to us for educational help to do courses like Engineering, Medicine, Nursing etc. We advertise these requests. If any donor responds, we take the help and pass it to the student in need. We also establish donor-beneficiary relationship, if the donor desires so. Educational adoption: We have this project in mind for so long. We have established relationship with a couple of good English medium schools in AP. Through this project, we want to help children from 1st grade till 10th grade. If any donor is interested, we will identify the student and pass complete details of him/her. We wish the donor help him/her for a period of time by providing costs of fee, books, cloths etc to the child atleast for a period of time. We want longterm commitments from the donors for this task. Libraries: Though we are not directly involved, we helped establishing a few libraries in Dalit localities in AP and they are very successfully. The demand is growing and getting several requests to start more libraries. We need money, books, and equipment. If anyone is interested, we will identify the location and provide complete details of the library. Vocational Training: We have been thinking of starting a sewing training to Dalit girls in a village in AP. We have community hall to start the classes. But we need money to buy machines and to pay salary to the instructor. So, if anyone is interested, we will provide complete details of our project. You can support us in any one or more of these projects. How are we different from others? · The project is run by volunteers with similar economically poor background. · We update every detail of the project to the donors on regular basis. · We publish all our donations/expenses on our website. · We match the donor and beneficiary in most of the cases and provide beneficiary information to the donor. · Scholarships are named after the donor’s loved ones.and CofA (Certificate of Achievement) is given with donor’s name on it · We have very negligible overhead costs. · We encourage our donor to have a one-to-one relationship with the beneficiary by providing all details. If anyone is interested and have more questions, please visit our websites at www.ambedkarscholarship.org , www.friendsforeducation.org or write to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Looking forward to hear from you.Benjamin Paul Kaila ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An educated man without character and humility was more dangerous than a beast. If his education was detrimental to the welfare of poor, he was a curse to society. -Babasaheb Dr B R Ambedkar Please visit www.ambedkarscholarship.org or www.friendsforeducation.org
