School Sponsorship

Made by Survivors/ T E N Charities currently sponsors 160 child survivors and kids born into brothels to attend school, many for the first time in their lives. Some of these children have been enslaved in brothels for sexual exploitation, before being rescued and sent to aftercare shelters. Others were enslaved for industrial work, on farms, or as domestic servants.  Some are the children of slaves, growing up in red light areas and at high risk for being trafficked themselves.

How School Sponsorship Helps:

Children who are enslaved, or whose parents are in slavery, are destined to grow up and repeat the cycle unless they are given education and ongoing support to build a different kind of life. Education transforms not only the children, but also their families, serving as an inspiring example to others, and ultimately bringing sustainable income into the family and community.  The children in our sponsorship program are already housed in loving shelter homes, or they participate in drop-in programs.  However, the shelters and drop-in programs cannot always afford school fees .

Your Sponsorship Gift Pays For:  School fees, uniforms and supplies, transportation, and either room and board in shelters or boarding schools, or afterschool support and tutoring services for children living with their families.

What We Don’t Do: 

Unlike many other school sponsorship programs, who use as much as 50% of sponsorship donations for administrative fees, MadebySurvivors uses 100% of sponsorship fees for the children’s education. Our overhead costs are covered by the sale of products from Made By Survivors and by a foundation grant.

What we offer Sponsors: Photo and profile of sponsored child, narrative reports from site visits, cards from sponsored children, and progress updates or report cards as available.   Within two weeks of enrollment, you will receive your child’s photo and background information.  We know you will enjoy watching your child blossom throughout the year.

You can sponsor monthly by clicking one of the Paypal buttons below, or Give the Gift of Education - a year of sponsorship ($360) in honor of a loved one.  The recipient will receive a card explaining the gift and updates on the sponsored child throughout the coming year.
 

Click here to download our sponsorship brochure.   Email info@madebysurvivors.com if you have any questions. If you'd like to start sponsoring a child today with monthly online payment click one of the paypal buttons below. 

Sponsorship Program Sites:

Freedom School, Firojpur, Northern India

What makes this scene so remarkable is that these children recently spent their days working alongside their parents in bonded labor slavery The hands now holding pencils formerly wielded tools of heavy labor –working in quarries, or toiling on farms from dawn to dusk. Families in bonded labor slavery do not see the benefits of their grue Instead, they are working off ‘debts’, often small debts of less than $100 which only accumulate over time as the system is designed to keep them in bondage indefinitely.  In many cases, generations of a family will become trapped in a cycle of bonded labor and steadily accruing debt. 

Children growing up in bonded labor do not receive education, so they grow up with no skills or ability to earn money outside of the system of slavery.  Thankfully, in Firojpur, we are working with an amazing organization called MSEMSV which rescues entire communities from slavery.  They start by convincing parents to let their children attend school, rather than working.   Our Freedom school also serves as a community center, from which MSE workers reach out to enslaved families in the village.  They hold awareness camps, talk with local government members, doctors and teachers and place pressure on slave-holders to allow children to go to school, gradually raising awareness of the fact that bonded labor is illegal and exploitative.  Ultimately, the entire village will be enabled to leave slavery as a group, so that no one family can be targeted for reprisals. 

Boarding School for survivors outside Calcutta, India

Our 16 boarding school-sponsored children are all thriving.  We have known and worked with these children for the past four years, so it is a great joy and relief to know they are in a completely safe and nurturing environment, where they can reach their full academic and personal potential.       

The children came to us from our partner agency Apne Aap in Calcutta India.  They are the children of women who were trafficked into sexual exploitation in their early teens, from rural areas in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.  The children were identified as being particularly high risk for trafficking and exploitation.  They were first housed in the Apne Aap night shelter, a temporary one-room shelter in the middle of ‘The Lanes’.  We began sponsoring them for day school in 2007, but the situation was still not ideal because the children were traumatized by seeing their mothers’ continued exploitation, as they could see the red light area from the open roof of the shelter home.  

In late 2009, the Ram Krishna Mission boarding school, offered placement to 10 of our children.  RKM is a very prestigious boarding school, which many well-off Indian families choose for their own children.  University acceptance is practically guaranteed for a graduate of RKM, and we are committed to getting our children all the way through high school, and beyond.

Nepalese Home in Kathmandu

​The Apple of God's Eyes is an International Non-Governmental Organization in Kathmandu. They run a large, family shelter called Nepalese Home that provides care to almost two hundred children. The staff at Nepalese Home welcomes each child into their family. Most of these children study at the Apple of God's Eyes Kids Academy, which opened its doors in April 2009 to meet the needs of the expanding shelter. Some of the older children study at Elim Kids Academy and nine young women are attending a local college. This group is responsible for truly transforming the lives of all the children at the shelter through rehabilitation which includes music, dance, art therapy, and lots and lots of love. The staff also regularly conducts outreach in the villages to help prevent trafficking in rural areas. We are so proud to partner with this amazing group and help support the academic endeavors of some of the survivors that live there.

​Princess Home in Kathmandu

​Several years ago, we placed a jewelry order from a small shelter in Nepal calling themselves "Princess Beads." The jewelry was absolutely lovely and a partnership was born. Established by Pastor Ranjit and his wife Sarah, the Princess Home for girls is a shelter in Kathmandu that cares for survivors of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Initially, there was a shelter for boys only. Some of the street children asked Pastor Ranjit why he did not have a place for the girls and this inspired him to reach out to his parish to raise the money to build a shelter for the girls, who had no safe place to go.  Last year in April 2010, ten of the young women from the Princess Home enrolled in school. For some of the girls, this was their first academic experience, for others it was a long-awaited return to school. All of these young women are making tremendous progress with the two youngest girls standing first in their class following the end of the semester examinations. We are so very proud of the girls' achievements and thankful to our generous sponsors who make this possible.