Association for India's Development, Bloomington Chapter

Ark Foundation is a group of young people, many of them alumni of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, who are motivated to take education to the doorstep of the needy children. They understand the difficulty many children have in traveling from one village to another to attain school lessons and are aware that for many children education is secondary to contributing to economic activities at home. It is with this in mind that the Foundation began its Education Centres with the idea that “if children cannot go to school, we will bring school to them”. They have inspired several volunteers to teach them in Mubarakpur slum of Delhi, Jamalpur of Aligarh and Kataila of Ghazipur. Dr. Shaheen Ansari, a Ph.D. from JNU, is the convenor of the Foundation.

Funds are requested to raise the honorarium (to Rs. 2000.00 per month for teachers and Rs. 3000.00 per month for the principal) and to support education from 6th to 10th grades.

This institution of formal education lacks the basic amenities like walls, toilets, classrooms, blackboards, libraries, science labs etc. The school functions on a piece of land donated by the village board and this land belongs to the school with no strings attached. Three teachers left for better paying jobs in the nearby areas.