What we do
 We believe education will bring about positive change!
The poorest children around Vrindavan literally live off the streets and their only hope each day is to go and beg for a few rupees to support their families. Their lives are full of ignorance, frustration and suffering and they are caught up in a vicious circle of poverty.
The two Sandipani Muni schools provide these children with a chance to break free and make something of their lives. The schools provide education to some 900 of the poorest children in Vrindavan in a safe environment and with qualified teachers. The schools encompass award winning education standards and include a kindergarten which takes care of toddlers from the age of 6 months whilst their parents are at work.
The schools promote new methods of teaching, giving much importance to an interactive and integrated method of learning as recommended by the Government's State Educational Board. The children are taught the most basic of skills from washing and grooming themselves to learning the alphabet and numbering system and advancing further in Maths, English and Hindi. Extracurricular activities outside of school help the children to expand their minds, express themselves creatively and have some fun. They include dance, music, theatre, sports, swimming and martial arts. The children are also supported in further developing their cultural and spiritual beliefs.
Due to insufficient space in the schools, afternoon classes have also been initiated for the children who are unable to secure a place in the schools but who long to go to school! This afternoon programme gives the older children a way to contribute back and gives them an opportunity to assist the in teaching.
The education for the children is free. The sponsorship programme, named "Gift of Hope", is the means to provide free education and skills to the poorest children who live in the worst possible conditions and have no hope of otherwise being educated.
Without help from Food For Life Vrindavan, these children would not be able to escape the poverty trap or be in a position to bring about change not only for themselves but for their family and the community too. Education is giving them hope for a better future and we have seen these children transform into well rounded, confident individuals who aspire to having a professional job and making a difference for others around them.
Our commitment:
 Our commitment is to maintain our existing schools and to build a further school to support education for children up to the age of 18 years, as well as provide support to individuals in finding suitable employment.
To do this, we need your help. You can sponsor a child for as little as 80 pence per day! This is sufficient to cover all expenses necessary for the full time education and care of the child including meals and clothes, giving them an opportunity that they would otherwise only dream of.
Click here to sponsor a child.
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Why are we supporting social development?
 We have schools to educate and bring about positive transformations in Vrindavan’s poorest children. We also know that each day, these children return home to their parents and back into environments which essentially remain unchanged and which can potentially inhibit any progress made by a child. Food For Life Vrindavan therefore runs special projects to empower rural people and bring about social change in local communities.
Schemes have been set up to improve the quality of lives of the villagers in partnership with local authorities, governmental agencies and other organizations and the key areas of focus to date have been:
Empowering Women
 Despite the fact that women bear responsibility in virtually all areas of life (family, nutrition, education, health), they have a low social status in rural India and are often denied basic rights, resources and the freedom to take action.
Our primary aim is to support the women through education and counseling to enable them to achieve improvements in all areas of their family lives. In talking with the women on a regular basis and through collaboration with the Savitri Polytechnic Institute for Women, it was possible to identify problems with the existing social structures. As a result, awareness and training camps were launched for village counsel members in order to correct these issues. Furthermore, special projects have been initiated to tackle education around early childhood development, healthcare as well as sanitation and hygiene.
Vocational Training
 Food For Life Vrindavan set up basic courses for women on sewing and tailoring to enable them to make readymade garments and other handicraft. In addition to providing sewing machines to enable women to work from home, selected women have been employed by Sandipani Muni school to sew uniforms for the children. Before such projects were initiated, women had few prospects for gaining employment and now they are assured a regular income which helps them further support their families and they have a sense of self worth. This also provides free uniforms for the children!
Click here if you have expertise in social development projects and wish to support us.
Micro Credit Schemes
Food For Life Vrindavan has set up micro credit and self help groups in cooperation with NABARD (National Bank for Rural & Agriculture Development) and DRDA (District Rural Development Authority). The small loans are offered to the poor and mostly women, to start businesses which enable them to release themselves from poverty. Our network of micro financing has reached more than 1000 families in 26 villages.
Please contact us if you have expertise in running micro credit schemes and wish to support us.
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 A nutritious meal makes all the difference, as malnutrition is the main cause of disease. Each day, Food For Life Vrindavan provides more than 2,000 free nourishing meals to the needy and to the existing children in the Sandipani Muni Schools.
The food is prepared in clean, modern kitchens by expert cooks who provide wholesome meals using grains, lentils, vegetables and dairy products.
One cannot learn on an empty stomach!
 Research has shown that good nutrition is critical to a student's achievement and well nourished children will generally have a better attendance, be more attentive and have more energy during the day. Children enrolled in the schools receive breakfast (fruit and biscuits with milk or herbal tea) and lunch on a daily basis. It is astonishing to see the change in a child within a matter of weeks once the diet is balanced and regular!
The in this picture is not naturaly blode, she has anemia due to malnutrition.
Special Feasts
In addition to the set daily meals, Food For Life Vrindavan also recognize that there are members of the community which often get overlooked and so the charity routinely provides special feasts for little girls, widows, holy men and the blind.
If you would like to sponsor food distribution for a day, for an important occasion or in honor of a special person, then please click here. For a donation of only about £50, over 500 poor children and adults will enjoy a simple nourishing meal that is provided EVERYDAY at 5pm!
You will be sent a photograph of the food distribution program for you to remember that day. Sharing this with our own families will remind us how lucky our children really are!
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 How can the poorest of people afford medical emergency treatment when they do not have even enough money to sufficiently feed or clothe themselves, and when their home for the entire family is a simple mud hut?....They can't and simply have to suffer the pain.
It is through the generosity of donors that it has been possible to meet the expense of urgent medical treatments and operations for the critically sick or injured, who otherwise would have no access to any medical assistance at all.
In 2007, we trained a number of villagers to work as health guides. These guides have in turn provided important health related information to villagers who are often illiterate and have little access to valuable information.
According to the Mathura District Adminstration, the mortality rate for infants born in this region is 9.7% for the poorest section of society. Our health guides have actively worked to support some 720 pregnant women and there have been no reported mother or child mortalities during 2007 within this group. Here at Food for Life Vrindavan we are really proud of the achievements of our health guides in just their first year. We are determined to maintain this track record through a continuous program of health education.
Food For Life Vrindavan are fortunate to have an in-house doctor and nurse who are available for the children's day to day needs within the schools. We regularly have the children checked by dentists and opticians and ensure they receive the correct vaccinations, vitamins and food supplements as necessary.
Our medical staff also provides medicines to the poorest individuals and particularly the children, women and elderly who are often neglected. Successful healthcare programs have been initiated to teach the villagers the basics of hygiene and first aid. Polio vaccinations have also been administered to over 50,000 children in rural areas.
A new medical centre is being developed which will mean free, easy access to rapid, professional medical care for the rural communities.
To make a donation towards medical treatments please click below.
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 Food For Life Vrindavan values the importance of conserving the environment and have initiated a number of projects from cleaning up local villages and planting trees to raising awareness of the importance of protecting and caring for the environment.
Planting trees was the first step in the environmental program whereby children initially spent some time understanding the need for trees and their significance to life on earth and then making posters for an exhibition to promote the project. They then happily got their hands dirty in planting saplings which gave them the satisfaction of contributing to something worthwhile. Some 5,000 trees have been planted and cared for to date, with an amazing 85% survival rate.
With support from the local municipality and an International Aid Agency, FFLV full time employed workers set about putting in place two solid waste management initiatives (named Varahadev and Vishwas) which resulted in the removal of waste, cleaning up of streets, managing garbage dumps and recycling waste. As well as enhancing the natural beauty of the areas, the local communities now have more respect for the areas in which they live and consequently care for their environment in a better way.
The charity also has its own organic farm. Vegetables are grown and sold in order to generate more funds for the charity.
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 Water is such a basic necessity and yet access to fresh water is severely limited in many villages. It's not unusual for women and children to walk many miles to get some water which they carry back to their homes in the heat and in bare feet! The water they bring back is unfortunately not always fit for human consumption and as a result, the villagers are vulnerable to water borne diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery and cholera.
Unsafe water is a major cause of sickness, disease and death especially amongst children whose immune systems are still developing.
In the past five years, Food For Life Vrindavan has funded sustainable sources of clean water. 14 water facilities have been successfully installed to provide clean water to more than 60,000 people. By creating an effective pump system, water from underground can be sourced for many years right within the villages, making such a difference to families!
A filter system has also been installed in the Sandipani Muni School ensuring safe drinking water for the students by removing the TDS (total dissolved solids) in the water from 2,200 down to 55 (the international accepted standard being 50).
If you would like to contribute towards our drinking water projects, please click here.
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 There are approximately 300 to 400 cows in Vrindavan. Many are abandoned by their owners who cannot afford commercial fodder to feed their non-productive cows. Unless they are protected, they are destined to subsist on refuse, become plagued by various debilitating and often terminal diseases or they suffer painful injuries caused by careless motorists.
Care for Cows has set up a 'go sadan' or cow's home which maintains abandoned cows, bulls, retired oxen and orphaned cows. It is run by international volunteers who offer their expertise and resources to tend to the neglected or injured cows. The cows are fed fresh grass, receive medical support as necessary and are well looked after within their own dedicated cow sanctuary.
For further details see the dedicated care for cows website:
www.careforcows.org
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 If you go to Vrindavan and hold out a single old sock (even with holes in it!), you will have lots of children scrambling and fighting over it. This is because they are so poor that they may have only a couple of items of clothing to cover them and to keep warm in the winter.
All year long, Food For Life Vrindavan distributes new and used clothes to the local villagers. Following a quick survey in our school classrooms, we discovered that at least 30% of our children were sleeping on the floor, lying only on plastic sheets or thin rugs. With the kind help of friends and supporters, we immediately purchased and distributed blankets and mats.
Every New Year's day, we also reach out to the poorest of children and provide them with gift packs as a special treat. In 2008, we distributed 4,500 gift packs each containing a school bag, pencil box, wooly hat, toothbrush and toothpaste, toys and snacks, which was made possible thanks to donations received around Christmas time from people all over the world.
If you ever come to Vrindavan, please bring your unwanted clothes and especially children's clothing which will be very much appreciated.
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