This year's charity: Street Survivors India
During the conference there will be several ways to support the charity. All money raised during the conference will be donated to the StreetSurvivorsIndia organisation.
StreetSurvivorsIndia is an organisation based in rural India. The organisation organizes several projects for the education and economic development. The organisation is directed by social activist Shabnam Ramaswamy.
Some of these projects include:
- A school for students from poor families where they are taught English; Jagriti public School, Murshidabad, India.
- A project where women can make traditional clothing, sell it and get to keep a part of the profit. This project is done so that women can economically empower themselves.
MUNA has been supporting Street Survivors India since 2012. Shabnam Ramaswamy, the director of Street Survivors India who visited Alfrink College in 2012, started Jagriti Public School in Katna village, Murshidabad, West Bengal in 2005: a school in rural India where (underprivileged) children have access to quality education in English.
Since most schools in rural India don't offer education in English, children in rural India have less chances in society than children in the big cities. Jagriti Public school offers underprivileged children a change to follow quality education as well. Because the need for quality education in this poor rural district is so high, Sreet Survivors India also started four so-called learning centres in the villages surrounding Katna village. In these learning centres about 1500 children have the opportunity to follow remedial lessons before or after school. Mr. de Haas, MUN director of Alfrink College, visited two learning centres in 2013. Charlotte van der Werf, the Secretary General of MUNA 2015, visited Street Survivors in Indian that December.
The children in the learning centres don't have the chance to go to Jagriti Public School during the day but depend on the poor public school system in India. Shabnam Ramaswamy, the director of Street Survivors India, describes the situation of the public school system in India as extremely bad. For example, Shabnam told the MUNA staff, the public primary school in Katna village has 400 children and only three teachers. The three teachers' primary job is to serve the free school lunch provided by the Indian government, for the rest of the day the school is closed again. This situation in the public school system is very common throughout India, according to Shabnam.
From the 1500 children that attend the learning centres about 25 children achieve a level that give them access to Indian universities and colleges after high school. The families of these children however miss the funds to pay for higher education for their children and this is where MUNA steps in.
We feel that these survivors deserve every chance to follow their dreams. We hope that later in life they can inspire and support other people in their community.