India (MNN) — Most kids in America don’t have to guess whether or not they’re going to learn to read. In India, it’s a different story.
Although 95 percent of Indian children start primary school, less than 44 percent finish 10th grade. Today, India has the largest population of illiterate adults in the world. Nearly 30 percent of Indian adults today cannot read or write.
Jada is a 10-year-old Indian girl whose parents are two of many illiterate adults in India. They lived in poverty and felt very strongly about Jada getting an education.
Jada (Photo courtesy of Mission India)
However, when Jada would come home from school and struggle with her homework, her parents couldn’t read the material to help. Her grades started failing and Jada felt overwhelmed.
Eventually, Jada’s parents allowed her to enroll in a Year-Long Children’s Bible Club with Mission India. The Bible Club meets every weekday after school and the leaders are trained to help kids with their homework.
Mission India’s Erik* says, “By us having this program available and training our partners to go do that work, we’re helping kids stay in school and hopefully increase the literacy rate and graduation rate.”
But that’s not all. “The most important part, obviously, [is] these kids get an opportunity to hear the Gospel and the power of that. They get to find out what their worth is and how Jesus values them and loves them.”
Jada’s Bible Club leader reinforced what she learned that day in school and helped with her homework struggles.
“The leader also encouraged her to seek Jesus for help in understanding her subjects and what she was learning. It was just a really great way to start to begin to pray to God while learning from the Bible Club leader,” Erik says.
“Gradually, her grades improved. Her parents were just so excited about that and her confidence was restored and it has set her up to get herself out of poverty.”
(Photo courtesy of Mission India)
Mission India’s Year-Long Children’s Bible Clubs are underway again for the school year. Every day, they are academically supporting kids like Jada and introducing them to Jesus.
Want to help? It just takes $24 to sponsor one kid in a Year-Long Children’s Bible Club!
“That $24 is enabling that child to be invested in academically and spiritually for a year. So $24 over 12 months, you can see that investment is quite inexpensive, but the power of that investment to transform a child’s life is tremendous.”
Click here to give to Mission India’s Year-Long Children’s Bible Clubs!
Header photo courtesy of Mission India.
*Name changed for security purposes.
