Nav-Jeevan

Newsletter December 2015

Since our last newsletter of July 2015 a lot has changed at Nav-Jeevan. Firstly we are proud we received the recognition for Junior College. This means the children can obtain their Junior College degree and can stay with us up to grade 12.

Nav-Jeevan has applied for a tribal project this year. It is about the poorest of the poor from the outskirts of Nagpur. Nav Jeevan has been selected last August as the only school in Nagpur. This is a huge breakthrough. Due to lack of revenue in the past years we could not admit more than about 220 children. Through this opportunity this came to 330. We got permission to recruit about 100 tribal children. For these tribals we will receive an annual fee.

The tribal people are from deep in the jungles of Maharashtra. Because of greater and more stringent laws for wild life protection they've been asked to leave the core jungle which was their natural habitat. Many families lost their natural occupation, which was collection of tendu leaves and twigs for sale. They moved to the outskirts of towns and villages to find employment.

The tribal adults got petty labour jobs if they were lucky but they and their families live in abject poverty. They often can't even communicate with other non tribal locals since they don't speak the local language and have their own. Maharashtra Government which has a department of Tribal Welfare launched this project in which they chose selected schools which had residential facilities to house and educate the Tribal children.

In the past we have shown that we could convince the parents, Our whole team went and within 1½ months we convinced the parents of 110 tribal children of the importance of a good education, medical care, food and the right attention for their children. Most of the children have never been to school and have no clothes to wear. Also they are severely malnourished.

It is the chicken and the egg story. We will only receive fees from the government after the inspectors have determined that the children are there and we fulfil certain conditions.

First the construction of the third floor had to be finished. Due to lack of revenue it was halted last year. We still needed more than 20.000 euro to finish the construction. Fortunately this was made possible through an extra donation from Godert van Buren, owner of the Calder holding, a donation that again was doubled by the company. The construction will be completed this month and this will give us one big dormitory and two little dormitories more.

Besides we needed about 10.000 euro for bunk beds, matrasses, sheets, school uniforms, shoes, stationary etc. We were very happy when the &pos;Advocacy Foundation for the (very) young child' granted us a subsidy for this.

In the first week of October the tribal children arrived. By chance we arrived at the 13th for our yearly visit to the project. We were very happy to witness how fast the children adapted. Although most of them only spoke the tribal language, after two weeks they already sang Happy Birthday in English and they also started to communicate with us a little: "good morning auntie" and "good morning uncle", "how are you?"'. It must be very difficult to find yourself suddenly in a very different environment, where you do not understand the language, must wear clothes and have to wait if you have to go to the toilet, while you previously could do your needs direct in nature. Flexible as children are, they had already quite adapted after two weeks. We hope that through education we can give them a bright future.

The past winters we suffered from the outbreak of scabies among the children. From the municipality of Den Bosch, we received a grant for the purchase of two solar water heaters so that the children can wash themselves in the winter with warm water.

Together you have donated 69.000 Euro in 2015 for Nav-Jeevan. A great result. The exact amount you can see in the first week of January 2016 on our website.

We thank you for your donations and hope you will continue to support us in the future.

The children and staff of Nav Jeevan wish you a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2016