Our projects in India
The SB Foundation runs and supports several different projects in India:
- The Blind School in Cooch Behar
- School and church buildings
- Hospitals and rehabilitation centers
- Helping people to help themselves
- Education
- Aid after catastrophes
The Foundation was established in 1995 and works completely voluntary on a Christian ecumenical basis with aid in different countries. Collected funds are invested (with only 2% deduction for adminis-trative costs) in practical aid projects.
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N.E.L.C. Blind School in Cooch Behar, West Bengal
Click here to see the February 2020 newsletter
"Our" blind pupils achieved top results
Click here to read about the very successfull graduation.
Click here to download the April 2016 status report
Click below to see a film about the school:
Since the year 2010, the SB Foundation supports a boarding school for blind and visually impaired in Cooch Behar, which lies in the North Eastern corner of India, not far from the Himalayan mountain chain. The school was started already in 1965 by the Norwegian missionary couple Hodne. The school comprises the grades 1-5 and has today around 75 pupils.
The blind school receives, as well as other schools in India, a certain economic contribution from the state and the local authority, although not enough. In order to make the school function, the remaining costs have to be taken care of: food and teachers’ salaries, restoration and reparations, mandatory school uniforms, leisure clothes, beddings, dining-tables and benches, computers and other technical equipment.
The pupils are taught ordinary school subjects, but also blind characters and to walk with a white cane. Many of the pupils like music and learn to play different instruments. They are also very interested in learning to use a computer and internet.
The headmaster of the school, Michael Chhetri, is a good example of showing that nothing is impossible for a blind person. Here are pictures showing him at the school’s 50th anniversary in January 2015.
Along with his ordinary work, the headmaster’s son (not visually impaired) lends a hand in the blind school.
Quakes from the bad earthquake in Nepal during springtime 2015 made the ground shake also in Cooch Behar – cracks were seen on several places in the buildings of the school, parts of the wall came down and the pupils were frightened when the ground shook. Here the headmaster inspects the damaged wall.
Most pupils come from very poor families who cannot afford to give their children a higher education. The SB Foundation tries to help the pupils economically to a trade training after compulsory school. Several of the school’s former pupils today work as teachers in Blind Schools as well as in ordinary schools or as physiotherapists, which is a common profession among blind people.
Other projects in India
The Foundation cooperates with the Hindustani Covenant Church and has during the course of years contributed to finance:
- The building of schools in Gulbarga and Nannaj. The HCC’s schools lay stress upon teaching English, which gives better future prospects to the pupils.
- Dressmaker education in Srinagar, Kashmir and Sundergarh.
- Some hospital equipment to minor hospitals.
- Purchase of a tourist mini couch that will generate an income to other projects
- Church buildings, pastor housings and a local nursery in Saharanpur, Sitamarhi and Sundergarh.
- A sheep project in Kashmir which grows by giving newborn lambs to a new owner.
Rehab Centre in Holkarwadi
The Foundation has during some years contributed to the financing of Shine India Foundation’s projects:
- Building a Rehab centre in Holkarwadi outside the city of Pune.
- Purchase of a minibus to pick up and transport handicapped children.
Ashirwad Nursing Home in Pune
The Foundation has contributed to financing the little hospital Ashirwad Nursing Home both by providing premises and by buying hospital equipment and a dentist’s chair.
Ashirwad Nursing Home usually concerns itself with the poor population in the area. The patients, at a low cost and sometimes for free, get health checks and the doctor’s treatment. On special occasions, such as during flu periods, vaccination and information are given, and masks are distributed. Nowadays the hospital also offers dental care.
Educational project in Sikkim
The Foundation has paid the hairdressers’ education for a number of young women in Sikkim and has bought the equipment for a hairdressing saloon in the town of Jalparguri. The Indian state of Sikkim is squeezed in between Nepal and Bhutan and there is only one road to and from the state. Occasionally the road is cut off, and then the inhabitants are totally isolated. Sikkim is mountainous, and towns and villages often climb alongside the mountain slopes. The means of earning a living are not many, especially for women. Therefore, a little group of women belonging to a Christian church in one of the villages, asked the SB Foundation to help them with a hairdresser’s training, and so the Foundation contributed in this way.
Pakistan
We have no ongoing project in Pakistan, but have earlier paid for a school for Untouchables in the desert areas of Pakistan.