NPO India Japan Maitri Association

Last updated: Feb,2006

	Name (English)		NPO India Japan Maitri Association
	Name (Japanese)	NPO Indo-Maitri-no-Kai
	Established in	Year1992
	Registered status in Japan	Registered under the Law to Promote Specified Non-profit Activities
	Name of the Representative in India	Naomi Tsunoda
	Address	(India)Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, India (Japan)6-20-2-203 Fukushima, Fukushima-ku OSAKA 553-0003, JAPAN
	Tel/Fax	(TEL)+81-6-6454-0893 (FAX)+81-6-6454-1813
	E-mail address	maitri*f5.dion.ne.jp (When sending a mail, please change * into @.)
	URL	http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~maitri
	Activity in India Since	Year1992
	Duration of JICA Partnership Programme	None
	Objectives of work in India	- Promote raising local residents' awareness towards education through an educational support such as the construction of school buildings, contribution of the textbooks and equipments(desks , chairs and so on) , teacher's meeting and athletic meeting. - Prepare an educational environment and give plenty ofopportunities for learning to children who are sufferingfrom discrimination and poverty in order to raise their living standard and expand their future possibilities.
	Outline of ongoing projects	(1)In India 1.The distribution of textbooks, desks and chairs 2.Teacher's meeting 3.School buildings and wall construction 4.Having an athletic meeting and other cultural activities (2)In Japan 1.Publication of bulletin(six times a year) 2.A fund-raising campaign 3.Enlightenment through lecture meetings and others 4.Public relations through all kinds of social events
	Field of Activity	Children, Education
	Working area	Kushinagar Uttar Pradesh India
	Name of the partner NGO	Myanmar Temple
	Message from the Representative in India: In 1992 India Japan Maitri Association was founded as NGO by volunteers for the purpose of the support of education, especially children without entering schools inrural village in India. Maitri means ”fraternity” or ”charity” and this “love” also means you share “love”with others in the same position. Recently India has made exciting progress with IT industry, but stepping into the rural village makes our heart ache for poverty. Most of the primary schools in everyvillage have no buildings for classrooms. There are not buildings for most of the primary schools in every village, so children usually study in the open air or under the thatched-roof. What is worse, the temperature goes up to 46? under the flaming sun in summer. So in summer and during the rains, it prevents them from studying. Primary education is free and compulsory under Indian Constitution, but actually children can’t buy study materials like textbooks and notes. There are many children who can’t go to school because they have to work for their family. Besides, there are few government primary schools in proportion to population. Most schools are private schools running by volunteers. So villagers must pay too much money. Six volunteers who have been to India and seen children under this circumstance founded NGO India Jaoan Maitri Association to do what they could do.First we made a survey of primary schools in around Kushinagar in India, founded schools and distributed desks, chairs, and textbooks . We collected funds from peopleapproved it as membership fees and contributions by volunteers. Now we have a full membership of 300 and over 450 affiliate membership. We presented 24 schools in buildings, desks and chairs for these 14years. We distributed 16,854 textbooks for 4,140 children, notebooks and pencils for 7,000 children last year because of lack of teaching materials and so on. And as it’s harder in India in winter than we expected, we distributed sweaters as school uniforms for 1,600 children who were just like undressed. Our activity is not only goods supplies but interchanging between Indian children and Japanese volunteers, study tours for volunteers and our main activity, the local teacher’s activities in a community.