The German Students

Two German students - Mr. Matthias Kunkel and Mr. Johannes Becker-- from the University of Freiburg, Germany, are in Social Welfare Institute since 14 Feb 2007. They are on a study visit to understand some of our educational programs and also to interact with the students and teachers supported by us. They are scheduled to be in Raiganj till 08 March. They have also plans to visit many villages in order to understand the situation of the poor here. Welcome Matthias and Johannes !

Insuring the Poor - Another Milestone

We are proud to announce that we have helped 1409 persons to get insured for the year 2007 against the planned target of 1000 persons. Through this program we have been able to insure the lives of the poor and we also managed to get additional scholarships for 420 students (all of them children of the insured) under another scheme of the government. Each student will get Rupees 1,200 annually. For this year, we have already received over 100,000 rupees from the government for this purpose. Moreover, we also had a death claim cleared in our very first year, so that, the family could get 30,000 rupees in the case of normal death of the person. The list of the insured persons are available on the following links. List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5, List 6, and List 7. We thank the family of Mr. Rudolf Kuester, Mrs. Barbara Kuester and Ms. Julia Kuester of Arnsberg in Germany for supporting the salary of one of the staff who was involved in the program for the first year. Without their support we would not have got so many poor insured. We would be happy to get more generous persons to support more staff so that we can take this program forward!

Jobs! Jobs!! Empowering for Jobs!!!

The Government of India had passed an Act in 2005 to give at least 100 days of work to the people through the Act called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. This is a demand-driven service of the government--i.e., if anyone wants job, they need to have a job card and then apply for work. But due to various problems in implementation, this project of the government has not been going well. Social Welfare Institute has been creating awareness among people to help them access this great resource of the government. Now, Social Welfare Institute, and PRIA are planning a strategic partnership in promoting NREGA in two blocks of Malda district. If everything goes well, 50,000 families will be benefited.