Boarding Homes
Many underprivileged girls have the potential to be exceptional students, but aren’t given the opportunity or encouragement to explore their capabilities and discover their unique talents, especially if they live in rural areas. Their parents bring them to Sambhali for better and healthy living and education, which their parents are not able to provide in their living circumstances.
The Sambhali Sheerni Boarding Home was established in May 2012 and was designed to enable poorer girls who have no chance of a good education in their own village to attend school on a daily basis. This programme began by establishing a family-run boarding home in Jodhpur for 20 girls from the rural desert area of Rajasthan, 100km west of Jodhpur. The girls arrived in the boarding home aged between 6-15 years old and attend a good school nearby. We aim to provide all the girls with an education until 12th standard (final year in school).
The second of Sambhali’s boarding homes, the Sambhali Laadli Boarding Home, newly opened on 10 April 2017 for 20 girls between the ages of 6-12 years old again from the rural desert area surrounding Setrawa village. These girls have all attended the local village school previously but gives them an opportunity to receive a better education to enable them to have more opportunities in the future.
Abhayasthali Boarding Home for young women who previously attended the Sheerni Boarding Home and are now attending college—the first women in their families to do so. At Abhayasthali they form a community, cooking and taking care of their own daily needs, but with support from the Sambhali community to help them navigate college and study for important tests, as well as the opportunity to participate in Sambhali workshops and self-defense classes.
Each boarding home has a housemother and cook who live-in. Three to four volunteers attend 4 hours a day from Monday to Friday to initially help establish the girls’ routine, organise medical and dental check-ups and arrange for vaccinations as preparation to start attending school. The girls also need to learn new personal hygiene routines like washing, shampooing and brushing their teeth. A tutor has been appointed for each boarding home and visits the girls every afternoon from Monday to Saturday to establish the educational level of the girls and to act as a translator between the volunteers speaking English and the girls speaking Hindi/Marwari. Once the girls have started school, the tutors help the girls with their homework and provide individual and class tuition as necessary. The volunteers also provide weekly workshops and sports activities as well as educational trips.