The inhabitants of the Jamtoli area are extremely poor, mostly illiterate or semi-illiterate, and survive by practicing subsistence farming and animal breeding with rudimentary methods. The older generations are resigned to their destiny and continue to live a marginalized life, while the young remain without opportunities for decent work.
The Salesians purchased 12 acres of land to establish a new mission and two of them immediately left to start new activities. The housing arrangement is still precarious and the religious live in a temporarily adapted stable, but for them this is of little significance: because the important thing is to be alongside the population.
Rather, what they are focusing on is to start an integrated development program as soon as possible that can lead to an improvement in the quality of life of the entire community, focusing primarily on education, schooling and formation for children.
The project they have in mind is in pure Salesian style. It is about building a school, a simple building of 4 classrooms, which for children and the entire local population of those isolated lands would mean a lot: not just literacy, but also play, sharing, care ... In a word, it would mean future.
The project's direct beneficiaries shall be about 900 children, belonging to various tribal ethnic groups. Furthermore, around 300 young people and adults could use the same spaces at other times of the day to receive initial literacy courses.
The school's long-term plan is to reach almost 1,600 children between the ages of 5 and 14.
As they wrote from Jamtoli's mission: "If we can offer a good foundation to a child while he is still small, then we can open the path to future prosperity."
For more information, please visit the website: www.missionidonbosco.org
