Kamal School

In 2013, we started Kamal School in a remote rural village in Bodhgaya, where there were a large number of out-of-school children from families living in extreme poverty.

At the start of this project, the school had 38 children in two classes, where they were educated according to the Indian government curriculum. Over the years, the Akshy Association built a small school where 100 primary school pupils were admitted.

With the Kamal Children’s Centre we also encouraged interest in education, both in the children and in the parents, who were very much involved from the beginning and collaborated with us. In fact, it was a group of mothers who asked us for help so that their children could study.

After 8 years, when the operation of the school was already consolidated, the Akshy Association handed over the supervision and continuity of the Kamal School project to a local NGO in 2021.

Children’s Centre in Burma

In 2016, we expanded our reach and collaborated with the construction of a kindergarten for the children of the Karenni people in Myanmar. This center is attended by the children of Karenni people who, after many years living in refugee camps in Thailand and forced to flee their homeland, began returning to Burma between 2015 and 2016.

Upon their return, they found their villages devastated and had to begin rebuilding them again.

At the Akshy Association, we contributed our part to this sea of ​​reconstruction by opening the kindergarten. We helped build this center, which offered parents the opportunity to leave their young children in a safe place while they walked miles to work the land. When the children grew up, they would leave kindergarten and attend a government school.

At the Akshy Association, we’re responsible for providing them with the necessary tools to build this “nursery” and launch the project, but a local NGO is responsible for its maintenance and continuation.

Saraswati Children’s Centre

En el 2016, desde la Asociación Akhsy pusimos en marcha, en la barriada chabolista de Darshat Nagar, a las orillas del rio Niranjana, cerca de Gaya, un grupo de estudio con 25 niños/as, al que llamamos Saraswati, en honor a la diosa de la sabiduría en India. 

Se impartieron clases durante 6 meses para concienciar a la población de la importancia de la educación. Al ser familias nómadas, itinerantes y que van y vienen a sus respectivas aldeas en otras partes del distrito no fue posible una continuidad de los estudios de los niños, pero las familias tomaron conciencia de la importancia de la educación y de cómo había cambiado a sus hijos. 

Con este grupo de estudio temporal intentamos inculcar la importancia de la educación para que en un futuro los niños de estas familias nómadas, sean enviados a escuelas donde se encuentren y reciban educación.

Shanti Niketan School

This school was located in the village of Nautapur, near Bodhgaya, where the poorest community lives in an area of the village totally cut off from the rest of the village and mainly work on other farmers’ land or loading and unloading sand tractors. They have no land, so they are labourers who only earn a daily wage when there is work.

The Shanti Niketan School was a transitional project, as at one point the Akshay Educational Centre did not have sufficient capacity to accommodate this group of students. Following the completion of extension and improvement works, the Shanti Niketan School, which was located in a room rented from the local authorities, was closed and the pupils were transferred to the Akshay Education Centre in 2019.

Khet Project

In October 2009, the Akshy Association had the opportunity to collaborate on this project. The children participating in the project are of Tibetan origin and come from the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, in the Himalayas. Due to the poverty in which they live, their families prefer to send them to the Sera Jhe monastery, where they can receive an education and live in better conditions, even though this means they will not see them for a long time due to the distance and the cost of travel.
At Sera Jhe, in addition to studying subjects like any other school in the country, they learn about their own culture and religion, Buddhism. At the end of secondary school, they can choose between continuing at the Sera Jhe Buddhist Philosophy University or leaving to live and study as lay people.
At the Akshy Association, we collaborate with the Khet project, taking care of a group of 17 children and young monks in Sera Jhe and another group of 10 lay children in Ooty (Tamil Nadu) who lived together in a rented house and attended school every day.
We covered the costs of schooling, food, school supplies, housing, medical care, clothing, etc. for the children in Ooty. In Sera Jhe, although the monastery covers education and food, we provided a necessary supplement to their diet, such as fruit, milk, etc. In addition, we provided other necessities such as school supplies, medical care, clothing, shoes, and/or travel to visit their families.
In 2012, the project was able to obtain its own resources and became independent, so we stopped collaborating with them, although we continue to maintain a good relationship.

Educational centre in the Sabariya tribal community

Our project is aimed at the Sabariya tribal community, located in the village of Putekela in the Janjgir-Champa district of Chhattisgarh state.
The Sabariya are one of the 600 tribes living in India. Men and women work in the fields, boys tend livestock, and young girls look after babies and the homes.
In addition to being unable to access government aid because they are not properly recognised as an independent tribe, they face a lack of work, land, medical centres far from their villages, discrimination and difficulty in improving their situation due to a lack of education.
The project consists of a learning centre for 60 children. The centre is a bridge between the Sabariya culture and the Indian education system, enabling children to learn Hindi, the language in which education is provided in government schools. Our project began in 2021 and three years later, in 2024, when the children had settled well into the government school, it was closed.

Water pumps

In the villages where we work, water scarcity and contaminated water are very common. Both factors are crucial in the gastrointestinal problems suffered not only by children but by the entire population.

To get an idea of the lack of water resources, suffice it to say that in many villages, more than 200 inhabitants have to share a water pump.

In addition to building water pumps in rural villages in the area, we teach the population how to maintain them.

This ensures that they have clean water for drinking, cooking, personal hygiene, etc., while preventing diseases and gastrointestinal problems in both children and adults.

With the sanitation plan implemented by the Indian government and water now reaching homes, there was no need to continue with the water pump project after 2018.