Supporting Dalit Children is a small charity started in January 2008 as a result of our family's short stay at St. Xavier's School for Dalits, ('untouchables'), in Southern India. We were incredibly moved by the work being done to educate these poverty stricken children and asked Fr. Eric, one of the Jesuit founders of the school, how we could help. He gave me details of 28 children needing sponsorship. Mollie Mendoza recently met Father Eric at Haileybury and was very touched by his words, so much so that she instantly responded and gave £100 to help these children. Marc Mendoza would also like to help - his 50th birthday is on the 28th July and he has very kindly asked me to set up this page so that donations can be made to the charity instead of buying birthday presents. It's difficult to explain about the Dalits on one page; 'untouchability' is an enormous subject that is little known about in the West, a secret apartheid that keeps a group of innocent people as the dregs of society. It's very wrong so please read on if you have the time.
At this point, I'd like to mention that 100% of any money donated will go directly to helping the children at St. Xavier's. I administer the charity myself with fantastic help from my husband and a dear friend Helen, and take nothing out for any expenses whatsoever. There is no middle man and all funds are sent directly to the school. Thank you. Dinah Findlay, founder of Supporting Dalit Children.
Who are the Dalits?
These children are India's poorest and suffer terrible prejudices just for being at the bottom of India's four-fold social class system (known as the 'caste' system). Dalits are 'untouchables' which means that if any part of their body or even their shadow touches a person from a higher caste, the caste member must perform a series of cleansing rituals to spiritually cleanse themselves of the Dalit's 'pollution'. Dalits are perpetually victimized, beaten and treated as worthless beings, even less important than animals.
How do the Dalit children live?
These children live in utter poverty, their forgotten villages cut off from society. Their homes consist of one-roomed mud huts or make-shift shacks with no sanitation or plumbing, and many homes have no electricity. Girls are more marginalised and married young in order to tend the family home, they have little choice. Some are forced into prostitution. There is total illiteracy within these villages. Bare-footed children dressed in rags are made to earn a few rupees a day by working in the fields or looking after small groups of cattle or goats, standing over these animals hour after hour in the hot sun and taking them to different pockets of grazing. Food is scarce and these children are all malnourished.
How can you help?
There are many children in the villages waiting for the opportunity to be given a place at St. Xavier's School. At present it costs £180 per year to provide education, uniform and food for each child, but any donation, however small will go a long way to helping a Dalit child to gain a place at this wonderful school.
Why doesn't the government pay for their education?
St. Xavier's is a school for Dalits. Throughout Indian society there is the belief that Dalits are worthless and don't need a good education, after all their jobs are to clean public and household latrines or clear bits of dead animal carcasses from the roads . In Government schools Dalit children are victimized and bullied by both teachers and pupils alike. They are made to sit separately from non-Dalit children and though all children can drink water at school, Dalit children are expected to go home to drink water. Most Dalits lose all enthusiasm for education and invariably leave before the end of their primary years for work, and so the cycle of illiteracy and persecution continues.
St. Xavier's needs our help because it receives no government grants and relies solely on outside donations to pay the teachers' salaries, food bills and all other associated costs with running a school. In effect it is a private school without monied parents, set up to give Dalit children a first-class education and the qualifications necessary to enable each child to stand on an equal footing with any other Indian child and ultimately, compete for the same employment opportunities. Each child educated here will have the worthwhile future that they deserve.
How much of your donation will go to help a Dalit child?
As mentioned earlier, 100% of every pound donated is sent to St. Xavier's - there are no deductions made whatsoever and there is no 'middle' man; the charity is administered and run totally voluntarily.
Thank you for taking the time to read this page, if you would like any further information about our charity, the different projects we are involved with, or if you would like to sponsor an individual child, please contact Dinah Findlay on dfindlay1@btconnect.com
