Sister India Blog

You’ve heard the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child,” but in this story, a little girl is making waves in hers. 
Lily is a 12 year-old-girl who comes from a poor family in India. She is the third child of five with three other sisters and one brother.  Her father works as a mechanic earning very little; what money he does make is put toward his alcohol and tobacco addictions, leaving her mother to provide for the family.
Lily’s mother earns 100-150 Indian rupees per day cutting pieces of cloth, which is roughly $1.44 to $2.15 American dollars. With this meager amount, she must provide for her family of seven. Lily and her sister often help their mother with her work cutting cloth. 

Lily learned about our classes through her sister and started attending regularly. She is always on time and eager to learn! Our teachers encouraged her and taught her literacy skills, and she is now able to read words in Hindi. Her teachers say that she continues to improve, and she spends two hours …

When you hear this over and over again, you sort of feel like the repetitive warnings and having time to prepare oneself should somehow "soften the blow". After all, I've seen the pictures, I've watched the documentaries, I've read the books, heard all the stories and cried with the testimonies. And shouldn't three summers in a poor village in west Africa be considered somewhat of an inoculation to whatever I could encounter on a ten-day trip to Gandhi's dream?




The truth is, there is no real preparation for the reality of India. I think back now on those days and marvel at the imprint they have left on my life. I still find myself processing some of the experiences, trying to make sense of some of the scenes and marveling at every encounter. There have been a couple of times that I have gone over my travel journal to make sure that what I am remembering really happened and it is not just a distortion of the truth resulting fro…

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Here are some incredible milestones the students have accomplished through the 2016/17 school year, thanks to your compassionate support.
(We are still awaiting final reports from one group of classes, and we'll update these numbers when they are received).
In this season of Thanksgiving, we are grateful for your support, and for the many lives that have been beautifully transformed!

Thousands of students, their families and communities are being restored and renewed because of your assistance: Girls are now in school, instead of in early marriage or child labor. Families thrive; business skills are learned and incomes increase, preventing trafficking. New medical and sanitary practices bring health and wholeness. 
In hundreds of communities, and thousands of lives, you have brought incredible change and new life. And this is only the beginning for them. On their behalf, "Thank you for caring!"
SPONSOR A STUDENT

The school year is more than halfway through! We’d like to introduce a student whose life is being transformed by your compassion and kindness.

As a young girl, Annaya’s heart was broken. She had a passion for learning, but her parents said that education is not for girls. Despite her opposition and resistance, Annaya was married by her parents at the age of 15.

Ten years later, now 25 years old, Annaya has four children and struggles with health problems due to teenage pregnancies.

Annaya’s husband Shreyas has a job, but he abused liquor which left insufficient funds to care for the children. Concerned, Annaya took a job as a maid but still did not have enough to provide for the family.

One evening, walking home from work, Anna encountered one of our teachers named Zara who invited her to the class meeting in Annaya’s village for 2 hours each week night. Annaya was excited for the opportunity to learn! She pleaded with Shreyas to let her attend, and she was able to join the class.

Each da…

Photograph of girl taken in a class
Hope for India's Girls
Bringing Them Life
UNICEF recently released wonderful news for the young children of our world!  Since 1990, deaths in children under 5 years old have been cut in half.[1]

Indian girls, however, have little to celebrate.  

India is the only country in the world where baby girls consistently die at a higher rate than boys.[2]  This was true in 1990, and UNICEF numbers reveal that it is equally true in 2015.

The picture comes into starker perspective when you consider that there are many more baby boys born in India than baby girls.  Unborn Indian girls are aborted at an alarmingly high rate.

These numbers reveal a heartbreaking reality: If a girl in India manages to be born at all, she stands a much higher chance of dying before she reaches the age of 6. 

Why?  The Indian newspapers chalk it up to gross neglect, and this must be true, but there is also evidence from a number of sources that young girls are killed by thei…