New Empowerment Centers and Primary Education Centers Open in Jaisalmer, India 

For the past fifteen years, Sambhali Trust has worked to improve the lives of women and children in Jodhpur and Setrawa, India. In April, the Trust expanded to include the city of Jaisalmer (jay-SAL-mr), one of the least developed areas in the Indian state of Rajasthan.  

Four new centers provide new economic opportunities for women and help children attend and thrive in school, as you can see in this video produced by Sambhali volunteers Manuel Morin and Natalie Nowik. 

Sambhali staff first learned about the needs in Jaisalmer when they provided food rations to the area during last spring’s Covid lockdown. Those who received emergency aid learned of Sambhali Trust’s work in Jodhpur and asked the organization to return when the crisis was over and open programs there.  

Earlier this year, Sambhali Trust staff from Jodhpur conducted a survey of four neighborhoods in Jaisalmer. There, the staff encountered a level of poverty that stunned them. 

“As our team entered [town], we realized what hell may be like,” said a staff member. “We were greeted with dirty stagnant water, choked sewers, narrow streets, crowded dwellings, mounds of debris, and a pungent odor. [Many of] the houses are not even considered habitable.”  

What the staff learned through the survey was alarming: 

• 98% live in extreme poverty, earning less than $1.90 per day; over 85% earn less than $1.00 a day 

• 43% of the population is illiterate, and over a quarter of school-age children do not attend school at all  

• There is neither basic sanitation such as enclosed toilets nor access to basic health facilities 

The new centers in Jaisalmer are already humming with activity. Classes are held six days a week. In the mornings at the Empowerment Centers, women receive instruction in Hindi, English, and math, gain vocational skills in sewing and how to set up their own business, learn about their rights as women, and can receive counseling and support if they experience gender-based violence. In the afternoon, those same spaces are transformed into Primary Education Centers where children receive literacy and numeracy instruction and attend workshops on personal hygiene, online learning, and arts and crafts. Many of the children at the Primary Education Centers have mothers attending the Empowerment Centers, allowing an entire family to work to turn the tide against poverty and illiteracy.  

It is an exciting time for Sambhali Trust as it extends its programs into a much-needed part of Rajasthan. This beautiful new beginning is made possible, in part, by the generosity of donors to Sambhali U.S.