Legacy Vision

LEGACY HISTORY

GWEI Grant Supported Projects | Sunanda Gandhi Residential Girls School and Washi Gandhi Center for Learning

We are excited to unveil Sunanda Gandhi Residential Girls School, built on an acre of land, a beautiful example of cross culture cooperation. Next, the Sunanda and Arun Gandhi Memorial School* will be developed by the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation and expand its courageous work. In addition to the one acre of land, home of Sunanda Gandhi Residential Girls School, Mahatma Gandhi Foundation acquired five acres of land in the village of Washi on the outskirts of the city of Kolhapur. On the five acres the partners are in the process of developing a comprehensive campus for boys with residential quarters, classrooms, laboratories, workshops for various kinds of vocational training, handicraft classes and subsistence farming and a dairy.  The Eco-Domes are built on the five acres in the village of Washi.

Sunanda Gandhi Residential Girls School has been completed on one acre of land. Photos by Scott Kafora


 

 

 

 

 

 

*Editor’s note: The boys residential school is being developed in Washi on 5 acres of land and has been renamed Gandhi Center for Leaning

                                           

Eco Domes built on the land in Washi.  Our first visit was January 1, 2010.  Video from first visit, click here.       

The children will get fresh vegetables, fruits, and milk for their daily in-take. In addition, the children and their parents will be taught scientific, organic farming. The campus will be environmentally friendly, using and developing alternative technologies for various daily uses. Artisans from the community will teach traditional arts and crafts. These are just a few of the attributes we hope to achieve with the Sunanda Gandhi Residential Girls School and the Washi Gandhi Center for Learning inclusive of the Residential School for Boys. 

With your support, the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute has been able to raise funds and allocate to AVANI in support of the school’s immediate need to maintain ongoing operations and care for its children.

These Gandhi Memorial’s, Sunanda Gandhi Residential Girls School and Center for Learning will also address another dilemma affecting poor children –

THE PROBLEM  

  1. Education can alienate poor children from their families. After they participate in a residential program, they are ashamed to go back to their homes and live in poverty and squalor.
  1. The conventional education these children receive in regular schools does not prepare them for higher education or for jobs that can lift them out of poverty. Often, they languish at the bottom of the labor pool and, out of frustration, fall into crime.
THE SOLUTION  

  1. A Family’s Involvement – The Sunanda Gandhi Memorial Home and School will involve parents. The Gandhian idea of basic education seeks to involve parents and other siblings in the process of vocational training for children. At the new campus in Nandwan, parents will learn scientific, organic farming to provide nutrition for their children and learn a trade that could pull them out of poverty.
  2. Wide Educational Focus – The Sunanda Gandhi Memorial Home and School will not only prepare children for the next step in their education, but will train them in a vocation that will keep them out of the sweat shops and dangerous factories.
GANDHI by STEPHANE CIPRE

..GANDHI by STEPHANE CIPRE

 

 

A Model for the World

The Sunanda and Arun Gandhi Memorial AVANI Residential School and Gandhi Center for Learning at Washi, meets
7 of the 8 millennium goals set by the United Nations for this decade. What happens at this school could provide institutions in other countries with a blueprint for change. 
 

  1. End Poverty and Hunger
  2. Universal Education
  3. Gender Equality
  4. Child Health
  5. Maternal Health
  6. Combat HIV/AIDS
  7. Environmental Sustainability
  8. Global Partnership

Current Programs 2024

AHIMSA GANDHI: The Power of the Powerless by Ramesh Sharma

Season for Nonviolence Jan 30 – April 4, 2024

Daily Acts of Ahimsa 2024

AVANI Sponsor the Children Fund

Gandhian Books  | Ahimsa Merch

Satyagraha Tour of South Africa 2025

United Nations ECOSOC Consultative Status since July 23, 2015

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