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Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation (BTEF)

The Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation

Abbreviation	BTEF
Founded	2009 (2009)
Founders	Dhirendra Sharme Brett Rosen Dwriko Sundrani Azmat Hussain Sharme Vinay Tiwari
Type	NGO
Tax ID no.	AACTB5667J
Purpose	Childhood, Education
Location	Bodhgaya, India
Volunteer Manager	Monika Mass
School Director	Dhirendra Sharme
Website	bodhitreeeducationalfoundation.org

The not for profit organization (NGO) known as Bodhi Tree School, yet formally named The Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation (BTEF) is committed to helping improve the lives of children and their families living in poverty in Bodhgaya, India founded in 2009 in Shripur Village. The area, where the foundation works, is still highly rural (many are agricultural workers, who are locally known as Manjhi), so many children are not schooled and are raised illiterate.

The foundation supports and helps develop holistic educational programs for children, and their families, by providing academic and vocational training, as well as nutritional and medical support for the children enrolled in the different programs.

Principles

Their work consists on several integrated programs that focus on 4 core areas – Education, Healthcare, Community Development and Leadership. The main operation of the non-profit organization focus on building schools and developing educational programs in the region of Bodhgaya and Northern India, also providing education and medical training for disadvantaged people .

Below are the three main lines of action:

1. Education and Hosting. Providing free education following the Indian program, classroom supplies, school uniforms and medical care for the children attending the school.
2. Women Vocational Training. Within the program named Garden of Smiles, they facilitate sewing teaching workshops to young women in order to give them a vocation and improve the employability.
3. Disable People. Disabled children are hosted in the school dormitories with all the other children as part of the Special Children.. Moreover, the program seeks the creation of an environment of diversity and equality, empowering respect and social values among the children.

Interventions

General program of Education and Hosting

The program, by the daily activity of the Bodhi Tree School, seeks to give education to as many as possible indian children, based on:

• zero violence education,
• gender equality,
• social equality.

Moreover, to ensure that children learn these values, teachers are called “Smile Architects”. Selection is done mainly based on soft skills such as on how compassionate or merciful they are, rather than titles or qualifications. Additionally, the foundation provides school material, uniforms, medical assistance and meals to children enrolled.

Special Children

As one of the few centers of education in the region accepting disabled children, the foundation encourage children to be treated equally by joining them all in the activities among the school. In May 2017 the Rotary Club of Albert Park got in charge of the special school project of BTEF. The funding was done through the RAWCS financial infrastructure as an addition to individual donors that started the project.

Garden of Smiles

This program seeks the empowerment of recently graduated girls from highschool. The objective is to equip them with the skills and abilities to ensure their employability, that is to say giving a vocation. The program focus on sewing training and products to be produce, so it can be self-sustained.

Happy Experiments

Is a set of activities with the children focused on promoting the foundation values such as humanity and health. As an example, the "Mr and Miss Smile competition" is done, increasing awareness on oral hygiene among children that participate proactively. Furthermore, there are physical activities empowerment by Yoga sessions on the schools for all students and a Sports Club.

As well as the school, all these activities include both girls and boys loking to improve the gender equality education. The proportion at the beginning on 2009 was 3 boys to 1 girl, but nowadays has raised to a fifty-fifty proportion.