Deserving students from Primary to University are covered in sponsorship program.
We pay for school fees, stationeries, medicines etc. as per the student’s need and availability of funds.
The students are from poor families affected with leprosy, TB, HIV and other dreaded diseases, handicapped etc.
We do have Scholarship program for students aiming for higher education and professional courses.
It is limited to 4 students in a year.
This scholarship is in memory of late Dr. Antonio Salafia, the founder of SPS.
Educational sponsorship program is a long term project, as a student from a poor family requires support for minimum 10 to 12 years.
In certain cases, our support goes for more than 12 years.
Students in the Program: Initially our operation was very small and we could only help a few dozen students at a time.
But due to the continued financial support of friends and well-wishers, we have grown and can proudly say that in the academic year of 2023-24
we have 244 students from Std I to University
.
There are 28 students in std.X and 23 students in std. XII preparing for their board exams.
There are 25 students doing their higher education including professional and diploma course.
In order to encourage these students, we give annual awards for class X and XII students based on their academic performance.
We have Balwadis in Municipal Schools as well as in slums.
Our Balwadi initiative began in 1990 at Pachubunder, Vasai, in a self-settled leprosy colony.
We currently operate 10 Balwadis in 3 BMC schools and 3 classes in slums, catering to children below 6 years of age.
Five of these are in English medium, while the rest are conducted in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Tamil, according to the need of the community.
In the year 2023-24, we have 535 students in all Balwadis.
The 3 BMC schools we work with are Daudbaug Municipal School, D.N.Nagar Municipal School, and Manilal Sunderji School Vile Parle.
The Slums we work in are Kassam Nagar and Jeevan Nagar slums on link road, Andheri west, in the suburbs of Mumbai.
We conduct support classes (group tuitions) in slums for school-going and dropout children, with a particular focus on girls, to prevent them from discontinuing their education.
After years of conducting Balwadis in slum areas, we noticed a high dropout rate among students, particularly girls, by the time they reached Class V or VII.
With the experience of working with slum families we realized that this is due to their weak educational background, no pre-school education and poor teaching facilities, illiterate parents and economic conditions etc.
Moreover, the parents want their girl child to take care of her younger siblings and house work while they are away for work.
We have 111 students this year in our 3 support classes from Class I to VII.
