about us

Benares Schoolfund Foundation (BSF), The Netherlands

The Benares Schoolfund Foundation enables underprivileged children in Varanasi and Jaipur, India, to receive an education.

All children’s families’ income is far below poverty level.
Education is expensive, sometimes very expensive. Without help it will always remain out of the reach of the poorest.

The Benares Schoolfund Foundation is of the opinion that education is thé way to realise social changes. Schooling expels poverty, opens the people’s eyes, makes them self-confident. Then they are in the helm themselves and stand up for their rights.

The foundation supports five schools in their running costs: school materials and teachers’ salaries and yearly training.

Many donors, and also some big sponsors, have pledged several years of support for the Benares Schoolfund Foundation. With their financial contribution, added to occasional donations, the foundation supports the schools.

The Benares Schoolfund Foundation manages also an individual sponsor programme. Regular school sponsors in The Netherlands pay all schooling costs of tindividual students: school fees, books, uniform, homework aid and tutoring. And, if needed, medical care and food supply for their families.

The students are carefully selected. The selection criteria are: income, amount of family members, preferably girls, and motivation of the child ánd the parents to finish school up to and including class 12.

Finally BSF supports a small NGO that runs informal educational projects: for villages without any school, for disabled people, young women and growing youngsters.