Partners for Better Futures

Stated purpose: Apu Palamguwan Cultural Education Center - Philippines. (APC). This grant partially funded ongoing operation of an accredited school that for more than twenty years has provided primary education, and has recently added secondary education, to children and youth in indigenous communities in the southern region of the Philippines. The school utilizes community resources and incorporates awareness of local issues into various learning experiences. The mission of APC is to provide an integrated, holistic, and culturebased education for indigenous children and youth. This is achieved by promoting anddeepening the children's understanding of their unique culture, while providing knowledge and skills that enable them to confidently relate with mainstream Philippine society. This involves instruction in four languages, including English. · Ar Yong Oo Learning Center, a grant for a new school building, for a school that educates mostly Burmese migrant and refugee children. A badly needed new building was completed, and provides a safe learning environment for 150 children in Myanmar. The new school building eliminates risks posed by termite-damaged columns, cracked flooring, and water leakage. Students and teachers have a structurally sound and hazard-free classroom space. With a properly constructed facility that prevents rainwater intrusion, lessons no longerneed to stop during rainfall. This ensures consistent teaching and improved learning outcomes for the two grade groups and Kaw Saw Naw students. The removal of damaged flooring and infestation-prone areas will reduce exposure to harmful insects and unsafe conditions, creating a healthier environment for all students. · DKN School, grant for new building and renovations to existing. This school in Burma has been operating for over 15 years. The existing wooden school building, measuring 60 by 25 feet, currently accommodates a large number of students without any internal classroom partitions. For the current academic year, a total of 156 students from nursery through Grade 8 are attending the school. The teaching staff consists of 11 trained educators serving under a regional faith-based education ministry, all of whom relocated to the village from a major delta region in the country. Because of the central village's critical, highly accessible location relative to other settlements, it naturally serves as an educational hub.The local ethnic education department plans to upgrade the facility into a formal middle school, provided that adequate school infrastructure can be secured. This grant provided new buildings and renovated existing buildings, to provide a safe learning environment for students.

Stated purpose: Anankdakshan Learning Center, India, a grant for operating expenses. Anandakshan Learning Space (ALLS) is a grammar school in India founded in 2014 by a group of middle-class families with the goal of providing a high-quality education with a non-traditional teaching philosophy to their children. BSI proposed and ALSS agreed to expand and adjust the enrollment at the school so that at least 25% of the students will be from underserved and less advantaged families. BSI's grant subsidizes the cost of enrolling students who are not able to pay the normal fees. The school currently has an enrollment of close to 200 students. · Cochlea Pune Hearing & Speech, India, a grant for operating costs. The organization helps children with severe hearing impairment. Cochlea Pune arranges for children born deaf (4 out of1,000 babies are born deaf) to be surgically fitted with a device wired into their brain, whereby the brain can "learn" what sounds mean. The grant was for the teaching of children (0-6 years old) who have the device need to have their brain trained to learn sounds that allow the child's brain to convert the signal so the child can understand the sounds as words and learn to speak understandably. Cochlea Pune provides a special and intensive training program for the child and a parent who are both trained and educated as partners over a 4-year period. The training program is full-time, all day for 5-days each week with a very high ratio of teachers to child-parent from one teacher to one child-parent up to one teacher for four student-parent participants. · Holistic Education Mission, India, (HEM) a grant for part of operating costs. HEM is a school that mainly serves the needs of 200-225 poor and orphan children, youth, women and the rural poor. HEM mainly works with the tribal "Dang" people spread around Dang, Valsad, Navsari, and Silvassa regions. Multiple tribes such as the Warli, Kunbi, and the Bhil call this region home, and are together knowns as Dangi's or Kukna's. These people are largely dependent on farming for their livelihood, now that the forests they depended on for their sustenance have disappeared. These are historically neglected people with high levels of illiteracy and limited outside help. Grant funds were used for the school's operations, including teacher salaries and classroom equipment including desks, books, whiteboards, etc.