The Garhwal English Medium School was opened on December 1st 2009 in response to the very poor quality of education in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. the Garhwal English Medium School began with just a few students, a couple of teachers and a cow shed, now we are a school of 170 students with 17 staff members and a whole school building.

Our school, the Garhwal English Medium School, is one of the projects initiated by our non-government organization (NGO), The Garhwal Organization for Uplifting the Needy — GOUN, which means ‘village’ in Hindi. The school has developed through our collaborative experience. We, (Kunwar and Lori Chauhan) met many years ago and realized we shared a desire to make a difference in the lives of the Jaunpur/Jansar-Bawar people.

So our little school is progressing, and getting stronger day by day, but the problem for us is that Kunwar and I still have restless nights worrying about how to meet our monthly expenses which amount to 2 lakh ($4,000.00 Cdn, $3500.00 US). It is difficult to raise these funds each month– teacher wages, bus expenses, meals, taxes, electricity, etc. Few funding agencies will provide funds for these purposes. Whatever income Kunwar and I are able to earn privately goes towards supporting the school. So we have come up with a strategy to ensure monthly funding which we are confident can work, and which we think many people who want to help, will be able to contribute to . Most people can spare 500 Rs, or $10.00 per month, and if 400 people were to contribute this amount every month, then we can meet our monthly expenses, and have the peace of mind and freedom to allocate other funds we secure through funding agencies, etc. for infrastructure, and resources.

Ten dollars a month may not seem like much, but it goes far in covering our costs. It can cover one days meals for 156 students. It can pay for one day’s fuel for the bus which transports all of our children safely to and from school. It covers a day’s wages for one staff member. $10.00 x 400 people can move mountains. Thank you for reading this and thank you in advance for joining the 400 like-minded people who believe in our cause.