Horn Raiser Update - Week 3
Our HornRaiser has been live for three weeks and we are 21% of the way, having fundraised $3,188. We have 24 more days to meet our HornRaiser goal of $15,000.
We appreciate all the kindness and endorsements! Please help continue to share our project with others, whether that be via Facebook, our Blog or emailing a link to our HornRaiser page. Our team is nearing a critical point in our fundraising efforts that will determine the success of our project and we would like all of our friends and family to have the opportunity to help make an impact on someone else's life.
Project Update:
We were unable to Skype with Poul, our NGO coordinator, this past week, as he is traveling to different regions around India right now. However, we have included some photos of our community from email correspondence.
We have been busy researching and preparing for our Milestone II presentation this coming week - we will give you updates on how our presentation goes next weekend. Milestone presentations are key to the development of PUC projects as that is when we share our findings with a board of professional engineers and professors/staff at UT.
Here are a few insights on our community:
A woman's role in this community is to prepare food, care for the children, and occasionally help with agriculture (manual labor). They maintain family by handling all aspects of domestic life and keeping a record of family financials.
There is a primary school in the village for children to attend and
a secondary school some distance away from the village. Depending on the circumstances children may have to forgo attending school and help at home.
In this region, men are the primary source of income for their families. Many are agricultural laborers who have been struggling with the drought in southern India and some have resorted to alcoholism due to these hardships.
Our Conclusions:
This community center will provide access to nearby education for the children in the community, as well as a place for rebuilding the community. It will be used as a platform to discuss activities in the community - for women, that may entail economic empowerment activities such as soap making and for men, it will include agricultural activities and activities for their betterment.
In addition to the assistance this community center will bring, the government of India is sponsoring programs to help empower citizens around the nation.
The Indian government has instituted something called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). This act essentially gives employment (unskilled labor) to rural areas that are failing agriculturally. Think of road cleaning, infrastructure support, deepening of the lake (so the monsoons can fill them more).
They are implementing a program to help fight domestic violence and another to end traditional dowries - particularly in regions where dowries continue to impact the futures of women. Through the program to fight domestic violence, women are given information about how to complain against this violence and where they can get assistance.
