Sponsorship Projects

There are mainly 3 types of sponsorship projects one is for families which are extremely poor and so in need of additional support to reach the mainstream of social life, second sponsoring children. The main purpose of this is to enable children from very poor families to receive quality education so as to develop these children and their families over a period of 7 – 10 years. Third sponsoring students, this is meant for students who are at the university level doing professional courses as the young people from traditional fishermen communities do not have enough support from their families to study in professional institutions as they are very expensive, there is a need to get additional support from a sponsor so that they will be able to continue their professional education. The sponsorship projects in general are aimed at supporting families, children and young people so that they are not left out in social life.

a. Family sponsorship Project:
       As far as the sponsorship project of families is concerned the project known as My Indian Family (MIF) project was started in 2002 after Samhathi realizing the presence of hundreds of extremely poor families who were living a miserable life because of sheer poverty they are in for various reasons. Most of these families are in such helpless condition either because they have no source of income or some of the family members are in such incapacitated way because of serious sickness or accidents, they need the support of the sponsor to lead a normal life. The family sponsorship project is normally meant for a period of 7 years during which Samhathi would help the family from the aid of the sponsor to reach a self reliance status either by setting up some income generation projects or by providing educational support to the children of the family. The average amount the sponsor donates to the family is 10 Euro a month. Samhathi India makes use other opportunities available with the government and other social organizations and helped the family to develop itself into better status. A 7 year development schedule is normally prepared for each family once they have a sponsor and the sponsor is informed about the development schedule so as to keep informed about how his / her donation will be used by the family for its development. But there are also a category of families which are so poor and helpless that they have no possibility of developing into a self reliance status and in such case the families given monthly aid to survive. The sponsor is informed at least once a year about the progress of the family makes.

b) Sponsoring the children:
       This project popularly known as My Indian Child (MIC) is aimed at supporting children from very poor families who have no possibility and chance to study at school level because of the constraints at home. Such children are sponsored to study at Jnanpeet, the children’s home of Samhathi. The child is given 30 Euro a month as support money to meet all his / her expenses including food, boarding and all the study expenses. Here again the sponsor is informed at least once a year about the child and often whenever there is something special, the children write additional letters to the sponsors. The purpose of MIC is to help those children who are in financially very weak situation but interested in studies and have talent to excellent life. It is presumed on the basis of Samhathi’s experience in the past that such children later on become leaders of the community and model to other children.

c) Sponsoring students:
      This project popularly known as MIS (My Indian Student) is aimed at supporting the students from financially very weak families to study professional courses so that they develop a better future which will also be a model to the community at large. The monthly support to such students vary from student to student depending on the nature of the course he / she is doing and the expenses incurred as part of the course. This project is still in its initial stage as it is the latest among the sponsorship projects but we hope it will also develop in the similar way like the other projects as it has a great role to play in molding the future of this traditionally backward community.

      Therefore in general the sponsorship projects are aimed at not merely developing a few individuals rather aimed at enabling families, children and young people to develop themselves so that their contribution to the general development of the backward community will be substantial and vital in the years ahead.