Under Tong-Len’s Child Sponsorship scheme, children living in extreme poverty in slum camps in north India are given the opportunity to attend school full-time whilst living in one of the Tong-Len hostels. All money raised in sponsorship goes towards the support of the children. For most of the children, living in the hostel is their first experience of a secure family life.
The Tong-Len School has classes from kindergarten to grade 10. Those students who have the ability to continue into grades 11 and 12 are sponsored to attend one of the local high schools or Dharamsala College.
It is not possible to offer hostel places to every slum child as we do not have the capacity for this. Difficult decisions regarding selection need to be made. Initially Tong-Len was only able to take one child per family and priority was given to those children in greatest need. One of the main reasons for establishing our own primary school was to give any slum camp child the opportunity to learn and develop through our holistic education approach. Since starting our own school, Tong-Len has been able to offer day school places to the children still resident in the slum, including the siblings of the hostel children. The Tong-Len School can accommodate about 300 students, half of whom are collected each day from the slum by the Tong-Len transport. The students receive not only a very rounded education but also good nutrition and care.
For full details of the sponsorship programme and guidelines for gifts and visits see here.
Child sponsorship not only provides an education, it also provides some of the joys of childhood to children who have known nothing but the hardships of hunger, disease, begging and scavenging.
If you would like to become a sponsor or have any questions, please contact anna@tong-len.org.