Seventy STARAE Scholars have Marched on to their New School, Will you Support Them?

Seventy STARAE Scholars have Marched on to their New School, Will you Support Them?

• Seventy students from Sultanpuri, a colony that saw a genocide against Sikhs in November 1984, started at a new school last month, which promises to provide them a good education and spiritual guidance;
• UNITED SIKHS has been sponsoring the education of these students, aged 7 -16 years, at their previous school for the last four years, with support from donors from Bangkok, USA, UK, Malaysia, California, Australia and Delhi;
• In March 2014, a decision to look for a better school was taken by the UNITED SIKHS team that runs the scholarship project called STARAE ( Scholarships as a Tool to Accelerate and Revive Academic Excellence)
• UNITED SIKHS started daily holiday tuitions for these students so that they could be accepted at a good school. During his holiday tuition, Parminder Singh, who previously could not write from 1 to 10 in English, not only learnt his numbers in a week, but, was seen teaching other students;
• The management and ownership of the new school, the JSS Khalsa School in Budh Vihar, West Delhi, is in the process of being taken over by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC). The Committee’s president, Sr Manjit Singh GK, visited the Sultanpuri colony, at UNITED SIKHS invitation, and reassured the students and their parents that all will be done to hire good staff and improve the facilities and infrastructure at the school.
• Education is an equaliser and opportunity can turn a weak student into a good one. Will you support these students by setting up a monthly or yearly donation of 2000rs/1000 baht/£20/$30 USD and CAD/ a month at www.unitedsikhs.org/donate or contact a UNITED SIKHS office near you to arrange other forms of payment? See www.unitedsikhs.org/contact for the contact details of our offices around the world.
• Watch videos of the STARAE project in Sultanpuri here
• See photographs of the students attending their daily holiday tuitions here here
• Read a financial report (2010-2014) on our STARAE project here

Sultanpuri, New Delhi, India – Seventy excited kids got off the bus on their first day at their new school on 14th July 2014. It was their sheer commitment and sweat, which made them brush up on their lessons at daily tuition classes during the Indian summer holidays that got them a place in the Budh Vihar JSS Khalsa School.

These students, who are from the economically deprived Sultanpuri colony of West Delhi, have been sponsored by UNITED SIKHS donors for the last four years under our education project called STARAE (Scholarships as a Tool to Accelerate and Revive Academic Excellence). See www.unitedsikhs.org/starae for more details.

“Under our STARAE project in Sultanpuri, our first challenge and success was to get these kids enrolled into a school. The next challenge was to tackle high absenteeism because parents do not recognise the value of education,” said UNITED SIKHS Resource Development Coordinator, Simranjit Singh, who oversees the STARAE project in Sultanpuri.

“We identified 70 kids who had attended school fairly regularly and it was time to enrol them in a better school”, he added, explaining why UNITED SIKHS chose to move them into a new school.

“We were not prepared to let these kids down. We knew all they needed was an opportunity to learn, which we must give them, hence why we conducted the daily summer holiday tuition classes,” said Simranjit Singh.

UNITED SIKHS would like to thank all our past donors; Sikhs Helping Sikhs for highlighting the education needs of these kids in 2010; Charanjit Singh Ji of Kalgidhar Society (Baru Sahib) and Joginder Singh Ji of Bibek Trust, who helped us as selfless sevadars promoting the education of minorities.

Education is an equaliser and opportunity can turn a weak student into a good one. Will you support these students by setting up a monthly or yearly donation of 2000rs/1000 baht/£20/$30 USD and CAD/ a month at www.unitedsikhs.org/donate or contact a UNITED SIKHS office near you to arrange other forms of payment? Seewww.unitedsikhs.org/contact for the contact details of our offices around the world.

Issued by-
Mejindarpal Kaur
Director
UNITED SIKHS
starae@unitedsikhs.org