My name is Andrew Hough and I want to help build a school in India, one text book at a time.

Here is my story why :) While backpacking through Nepal at the end of 2012, I met another backpacker who told me about a wonderful Not for Profit she had just volunteered with in Bodhgaya, India called Niranjana Public Welfare Trust (NPWT). It had been set up by Siddhartha & Devendra, two local men. They wanted to help lift the people of their community out of poverty, with a particular focus on children and their education.

Through the hard work of these two men, plus friends and sponsors across India, Japan, New Zealand and the world, they have established two full time schools, an orphanage, community health centres, women’s empowerment programmes and agriculture programs.

I felt compelled to go to Bodhgaya and meet these two men and see how I could help them with all the incredible work they were doing. I spent two weeks volunteering with NPWT. I got a chance to get to know Siddhartha and his Japanese wife Akiyo and their little daughter Sachi. The three of them spend part of the year in Osaka, Japan, working in their Indian Restaurant, raising funds for their projects in India and the rest of the year in India, working on their projects.

I got a chance to see all of their projects working first hand in India and to meet some of the many children whose lives they were changing. 

I also got a chance to go out to Ghongharia Village. This was a very poor village situated quite a way from the main city of Bodhgaya. Siddhartha purchased some land out by the village and has set up an agriculture program, growing food for the children at the orphanage and to support the local communities. On this land he has set up a satellite school, where the local children can come and get some lessons for a few hours at the start of the day. They have a basic cottage there to give the children some shelter from the heat in summer time and the rain in monsoon, however, this shelter is small and cannot house that many children. The children do not have proper text books, uniforms, stationary or mats to sit on. They are not receiving a full curriculum of study. Siddhartha is doing what he can, but simply does not have enough funds with all the other projects they are supporting. It’s been 2 ½ years since I visited Ghongharia School and little has improved since I was there.

So this is where you and come in J. Together we can help provide better educational opportunities to these vulnerable children and provide them a route out of poverty.

This first fundraising campaign is to raise funds for the basics for the children – textbooks, stationary, uniforms, mats, school bags etc.

The second, much bigger, campaign will be to raise funds to build these children a proper school. But that is going to take a little more work and fundraising, so first thing is first. Let’s get these children the materials they need to help them learn.

What I haven’t told you yet, is that I like to run. I use to run with the boys from the orphanage when I was in Bodhgaya.

So now I am going to run to help create awareness and support for this project. I have five races coming up:

·         Adelaide Marathon – 42.2kms August 23rd 2015

·         City to Bay – 12kms September 20th 2015

·         Yurrebilla Ultramarathon – 56kms September 27th 2015

·         Heysen 105 Ultramarathon – 105kms 24th October 2015

·         Tarawera Ultramarathon – 100kms 6th February 2016

Any donations you can spare for this worthwhile project, will be greatly appreciated.

Know that your kindness and generosity is helping create a brighter future for the children of Ghongharia School.

Warmest regards

 

Andrew