Schools – Sahaya International

Support the education of children in our school programs

Rural areas lack standard, good-quality education. For this purpose, READ started several schools. Two of them, the Mother Teresa School of Periyakrishnapuram was started in 1997 with 9 children. A second school, the Mother Teresa School of Thirukalapur was started in 1998 with 28 children.
The Mother Teresa School of Periyakrishnapuram was previously run in a small classroom with a thatched leaf roof. These children come from underprivileged communities. It grew rapidly to approximately 90 children, and so it was decided that more room was URGENTLY needed.
Since 2005, Sahaya International has been raising the money to construct a much-needed school building in the village. First we purchased a piece of land (approx. 28,000 sq ft; 2,664 sq meter). The total price to construct the building (one level) with neighboring toilet facilities was approximately $40,000.
To reach our goal, Sahaya International and Sahaya International.eu had organized a number of fundraisers. We are very grateful to everyone who helped us achieve our goal.
On December 22, 2008, the new school with 1 level of classrooms was inaugurated in the presence of Dr. Koen Van Rompay and board members of Sahaya.eu from Belgium.
Thanks to continued fundraising, a 2nd level was added an inaugurated in January 2015.

There is a big need for quality education in rural areas for children who cannot afford the expensive private schools. Therefore, Mr. Selvam (founder of READ) and a friend started in 1990 the The Jawahar Matriculation School of Andimadam. In 2003, this school became fully under the wings of READ.
In 2005, the school had 50 students and 6 teachers. In the school year of 2008-2009, there were 65 children with 7 teachers and one aya (helper).
In those early years, the school operated in a rented building, which was in bad condition as the walls and roof were slowly falling apart. The owner had decided to sell the property and demolish the school building and sell the land for further development.
These children needed a new school building….so in 2007, when we had raised most of the money for the construction of the Mother Teresa School, READ and Sahaya International decided that we would build a second school! Construction of the 2-storey building was completed early 2009.
Since the school moved into the new building at the start of the 2009 school year, the number of students has increased rapidly to approximately 250 children.

But we still need your help! Your contributions will go towards infrastructure:

Please become a sponsor and help provide these children with a better future.