India is home to more CBB projects than any other country, due to its extensive poverty, the discrimination of its caste system, the oppression of its indigenous (tribal) peoples, and its pervasive gender discrimination, as well as its immense population.
CBB funds 90 students at Prajna Vihar (Wisdom House), a private school that offers a free education to children able to attend a full day of school. This is such a good school that upper caste parents plead to have their children admitted to Prajna Vihar, but only the poor and oppressed accepted.
The school offers two years of kindergarten and continues through the tenth grade, the end of high school in India. The schedule is rigorous, six days a week, with daily homework after the first grade. Instruction is in Hindi, the language of northern India, with English beginning in kindergarten.
This school was founded by a Buddhist, has Hindu and Muslim students and faculty, and is administered by Catholic nuns. All students are taught "moral signs", the ethical values of the Indian and world religions. The school offers physical education, art, and dance instruction to all students. Parents pay only the cost of their child's school uniform.
The annual cost of educating a student at Prajna Vihar is $45.
CBB funds two systems of alternative schools for children of the Mussahar, the most oppressed and underprivileged of all the social groups in Bihar, the poorest state in India. Mussahar children are unable to attend a full day of school, as they need to work to help keep their family alive. So, the alternative schools meet from 7:30 to 10:30 AM, after which the children return home or to the fields to do their daily work.
One of these projects is directed by a Catholic nun social worker. Seventeen of these schools had been closed when their grant from another non-profit ended, throwing 700 children out of class. Funding from CBB reopened the schools, and Mussahar children are again receiving a basic education.
A similar alternative school project is managed by the Jesuits in 54 villages. These schools teach Hindi (the local language), English, math, geography and science, as well as health care and sanitation. The centers also teach human dignity, and that the constitution of India grants equal rights to all citizens, regardless of caste.
In all, CBB funds the education of 35 villages of Mussahar children. Oftentimes, these children are able to “graduate” from the alternative schools into the public school system.
The annual cost of educating 1,300 children in these centers is $11 each.
In the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, CBB partners with JONG, which organizes tribal and Dalit ("untouchable") women and girls in villages so remote that CBB's Executive Director was the first foreigner to visit them. Finding 35 girls in families too poor to send their daughters to school, CBB gave each girl a scholarship to resume her education.
Only 20 years ago female infanticide was common in this area. Some of the girls CBB is helping to educate wouldn't even be alive but for the progress that has been made. In supporting the schooling of these girls CBB is affirming the value of a girl's life.
Joint Organization for Natural Growth has organized 23 education centers in the 40 villages, each led by a young local woman with a 10th to 12th grade education. These women tutor village children for three hours after school, for which they are being paid for the first time, a monthly salary of $10 from CBB's grant.
Thanks to these women, primary school enrollment of girls has risen from 20% to 80%. Still, only 20% of the girls are completing high school.
Textbooks are free to school children in India, but they must bring their own notebooks. The cost of notebooks ranges from $2 for the first grade to $30 for the 12th grade. CBB funds the cost of notebooks for 400 girls, to reduce the expense of their education for their parents. Also included in CBB's grant is funding for 50 bicycles for girls whose school is three to five miles from home.
The annual cost of supporting the education of 400 girls in this project is $30 each.
In seven rural villages north of Kolkata (Calcutta), Compassion Beyond Borders funds literacy courses for members of women's self-help groups. Each course trains 50 women in literacy and health care for three years, with some of the women also receiving training in tailoring. CBB is constructing education centers for these groups that will also serve as places for community gatherings, such as meetings, weddings, etc.
This project benefits a population that is mainly Muslim, an oppressed group in India, and also Dalits ("untouchables"). Many of the "women" in these literacy groups are in fact girls who are not in school. After receiving literacy training, the girls can enter the public school system. The annual cost of educating 350 women in this project is $35 each.
