This Christmas I'm cycling 500km around Herne Hill Velodrome in one go (more than 1,000 laps and doing it overnight!)
I am doing this to raise money for LEAP India - a charity of which I am a trustee of. We want to provide opportunity for children from vulnerable and poor homes in Andra Pradhesh, India. The children that are supported by LEAP India have come from the most vulnerable and poorest homes in nearby villages. Our aim is to improve life chances for these children through education. Our commitment is to provide a home, complete care and education. The children attend local schools, colleges and universities. We also employ a teacher to supervise homework. The children are enthusiastic and work very hard at school. They want to be engineers, teachers and doctors, nurses and police.
Our oldest two boys, Mohan and Balaji, attended 6th form college. Mohan went on to obtain a science degree and Balaji trained as an electrician. Soni, the first girl we supported from 2010 has now graduated with a degree in Pharmacy and has started a Masters degree. She also now works at a local hospital. Since then, many other of our students have graduated with degrees and all have found good employment.
Education is the way out grinding poverty and hand to mouth existence for these children. They are mainly Dalits, previously known as "untouchables". People of this caste have traditionally been ostracised and have to search each day for work. Many are in bonded labour. The Indian Government has schemes to provide employment for Dalits if a good educational standard is achieved. The difficulty is attaining this as so many children are too poor to attend school.
Lives can be transformed by education. Our graduates would be daily agricultural workers with no guarantee of work if they had not had the chance to continue school.
https://www.leapindiafoundation.org/
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