Current and Ongoing 2023 Appeal

April 2023

We are delighted to launch our 2023 Easter Appeal for a new school bus that costs £23,000. Whilst this is an ambitious target, Fr Leo believes the needs are pressing and not just mechanical. For the past 12 years the old school bus has travelled over 150,000 kms over unmade rural tracks, to reach the outlying villages. Each year repairs have been needed, but now these bills are economically unviable.

Much more importantly, and this is the key to our Easter Appeal, as well as being needed for the normal route of villages, a new school bus with better suspension will be able to reach several new villages that have been previously unreachable by bus due to the inaccessibility of their roads. (Have a look at the video below).

Knowing how life-changing the opportunity to go to Loyola Kapepaladi school is for every child (and in time their whole family too), we feel that it is an excellent idea to widen the outreach to children from more remote villages. With these thoughts in mind, Fr Don has been talking to families from 5 new villages this year. So far he has enrolled 26 children, 2 of whom photographed here, who are really excited at the prospect of joining Loyola Kapepaladi school in June. These 26 children, and their families, have no idea that being part of Loyola Kapepaladi School is quite literally transformational. Over the past 15 years we have seen students who were sponsored throughout their school and university education, now in full time employment. Their salaries are good and increasing year on year, but their intentions and sense of wanting to repay their parents’ sacrifices, is inspiring. Without hesitation they send the lion share of their monthly pay packet back to their families, which helps to pay off family debts and eases day to day poverty. One former student is also paying his parents’ proportion of the school fees for his younger sister.

It is hard to imagine living somewhere so remote as these children do with roads so poorly maintained, but we have travelled along these roads in a jeep (very slowly!), and they are a reality in this part of India. I personally think it’s wonderful that a new school bus will be able to venture to 5 new villages and give the children there the opportunity of an education at Loyola Kapepaladi school in the 2023/2024 academic year. And over the coming decade, hundreds more children will follow. Fantastic!

To support our Appeal, please click the yellow button below and under Projects, choose the Easter 2023 Appeal.

If you would like any further information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Thank you, and Happy Easter

Dinah