BuildingTogether Foundation is a small UK registered charity that provides support and assistance to a team of friends in India who are bringing community transformation to remote villages in India.
Thanks to donations amounting to £7000 received during lockdown they were able to provide food parcels to over 1100 families, some several times, and meals for 300 migrant workers. This meant that nearly 5000 people were fed.
The charity is ran by Nickie Brown from her house in Thame.
Read their lockdown story below:
On the 19th March 2020 my husband and I received the news that our flight home from India on the 23rd had been cancelled as the Indian government was closing its airspace going into lockdown. We were coming to the end of our two weeks visit with just the opening of our village school to complete. With the prospect of several months stuck in India we quickly rebooked our flight home on the 21st. We cut the ribbon to open the school, got in a taxi and started a thirty-hour journey home from West Bengal via Chennai and Dubai, arriving home with just enough time to stock up before UK lockdown commenced.
Our Charity Building Together Foundation helps to transform lives in West Bengal, it has been running from our home in Thame since January 2019 with a handful of supporters, mostly local friends. In March last year we were running a leadership Academy for young people and providing tuition for children in two remote villages, one of which we had just completed building a primary school.
As the Indian government-imposed lockdown across the country, daily wage earners were left with no means of buying food. Fifty million of these were migrant workers who found themselves abandoned in cities, miles away from home and unable to pay rent or buy food.The Building Together Foundation team began a new project - FEED INDIA.
Working alongside other NGOs and Pastors, they began to identify those most in need; this included a Beggars camp, two leprosy colonies, local disabled people, Tea garden families and the remote jungle village where Building Together Foundation had just completed building Joy Academy. The latter was completely cut off and we were the only group given permission to enter and distribute food. One leprosy colony was in a very poor state having received no support for over two weeks; the people were desperate. We were also able to feed a large number of migrant workers camping out at the major railway stations giving them a cooked.
Thanks to donations amounting to £7000 received during lockdown we were able to provide food parcels to over 1100 families, some several times, and meals for 300 migrant workers. Altogether we fed nearly 5000 people.
Our India team then became aware of several young girls who were living in difficult circumstances with very poor family’s backgrounds. Some had been abandoned by their single parent who remarried which is sadly very common or were complete orphans, all had little or no prospect of receiving education. Girls are particularly vulnerable to trafficking in West Bengal where nearly 10,000 children go missing every year.
With the help of many generous donations, some from our local friends, Jessica’s House was launched in July 2020 providing a safe and loving environment for girls to grow and receive their education at local schools.
Lockdown has been a very tough time for all of us but I can honestly say that the love, care and generosity of our friends has been overwhelming and has not only saved many lives but is now bringing remarkable transformation in the lives of the people we work with.
If you would like to partner with us, send me a message and I will give further details. Please visit our website for details of our aims and other projects at https://buildingtogetherfoundation.org.uk and contact me on [email protected]
