The Heart for India Foundation is a non-profit volunteer-based charitable organisation founded in Switzerland, in 2005. Our mission is to work with other non-profit organisations in India to provide help for all those who are trapped in the cycles of poverty.
The poverty cycle has been defined as a phenomenon where disadvantaged families become trapped in poverty for at least three generations, making it exponentially more difficult for each subsequent generation to break free, and raise their standard of living.
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A key focus for our programs is education. It is an established fact that the most significant element in allowing a generation to break free from the poverty cycle is a successfully completed secondary education. We also believe, as a matter of principle and in accordance with the United Nations Charter on Human Rights, that education is a basic human right.
The old saying is: “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life.” This is one of our foundation principles: to help people to help themselves. Our aim, through the help we provide in education and nutrition programs, is to give this generation of children the power to become gainfully employed, and to support themselves and their loved ones without any further help from any agency.
Together with our partner agencies in India we have:
- established educational programs in schools
- paid for extra teachers in schools to relieve the burden of very large class sizes on teaching staff
- introduced physical education programs, including hiring a dedicated PE teacher at our expense
- created vocational training programs
- created a nutrition program that provides a free meal for school children, on the condition that they stay at school for the whole day, thus reducing the previously very high afternoon truancy rate
- supported two orphanages for abandoned girl children
These programs feed and support the education of 2,200 children every day in South India, and support another 38 girls in the Orphanages.
During 2011 the Heart For India Foundation will expand the program base to include support activities for severely disadvantaged children in Bombay. We also have a new micro-credit program in development for introduction at end 2011.
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