A group of 26 international students from America, Mexico, Germany and China were so impressed with Tong-Len’s hostel and the kids themselves on a visit to Dharmasala last year that they made the decision to raise money to sponsor a slum child from Charan for the full twelve years of his education. The slum child that is being supported is called Kumal.
The students were part of an international volunteer program organised by Global Leadership Adventures of San Diego (experiencegla.com).
Kumal has now joined the hostel and will be starting school soon. The student group have already raised $8,000 USD for his support. They are now working around the clock to raise the last bit of money.
See the video of their visit here.
One of the group, Jess Morton, writes about how this came about, below:
“A year ago I and 25 young adults from around the world, America, Mexico, Germany, and China, came together to help change the life of a child in India. We all took the long trip to Dharamsala India where we stayed for a month. When we visited the Charan Khad slum, we saw the tent school and saw how much the children wanted to learn and of course showing off what they already knew. Their strive for knowledge, melted our hearts. We all wished there was something we could do for these amazing kids. Our hopes were answered when we went to the Tong-Len Hostel. We were all blown away by the fantastic work being done there, changing kids lives through education.
My group and I knew that we wanted to send a slum child to Tong-Len, and help change a life. We got to work right away, making a Facebook page, a gofundme, and sending out emails to everyone we knew. Within 7 months we had raised just over 8,000 dollars. I couldn’t be more proud of the work done by my group, and everyone who donated. We now can send one very lucky kid to Tong-Len, and are still working around the clock to get the last bit of money. I know that I speak for all 25 of us on the trip that we couldn’t be more happy with the work that has been done to help the children in the Charan Khad slum, Tong-Len changes lives and we are so glad we could help.”