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Used Books, New Lives Explanation |
"Poverty is Solved With Education and Jobs"
Your Used Books = College Education for Orphan Girls in India
BASIC CONCEPT
Donors offer their used books for sale via a website-based donor form on www.homeofhopeindia.org;
Orphan girls at Home of Hope in India research salability and list those books on Amazon.com and send shipping information when sold;
Donors ship books (proceeds go into a Home of Hope college scholarship fund).
HOME OF HOPE ORPHANAGE, KOCHI, INDIA
Home of Hope is an orphanage in Kochi, India with some 80 girls, aged 6-20. The girls are among the poorest of the poor. Some have been homeless beggars on the streets or rag pickers. Some were simply abandoned. They have lived horrific lives, physically, morally and sexually abused. Under the care of the Salesian Sisters at Home of Hope, they now have a safe refuge and a loving environment.
As for their future, this is far more problematic.
CRUCIAL ROLE OF EDUCATION FOR ORPHAN GIRLS
Providing education to women in India, in this case orphan girls, is not merely a case of "giving charity." It's about investing in people and giving these girls the necessary key to a promising future. Everyone knows education is important, for these girls it is absolutely crucial for their well-being.
Basic needs are provided at Home of Hope, but without education, once they are old enough to leave the orphanage, the girls will have to rely on others for survival and will be subject to forces outside their control. Poor, orphan girls are most likely to have to resort to begging and prostitution to survive. Also, without an education, they do not have promising prospects for a decent marriage. Without an education, and additionally without a family, orphan girls (who number at least a million in India) have little control over their lives. Their future choices are extremely limited, if indeed they will have any choices at all.
These orphan girls are highly motivated and have a deep-seated desire to better themselves. It is part of the very fiber of their lives and engrained in their formation at Home of Hope. But, without financial help, this poor orphanage cannot provide access to education beyond the basic ten years of free, public schooling. This is where we can be of help.
With the powerful combination of the quest for self-determination (which the girly already have) and a good education (which can be provided if financial support is available), they can lift themselves out of poverty and assure a better quality of life—not just for themselves, but for their children and generations to come.
The cycle of grinding poverty is broken every time a poor, orphan girl receives a good education.
HOW TO PROVIDE THAT EDUCATION
Fund-raising is certainly one way. But why not involve the orphan girls in the process of, in effect, earning the money for their own education? And why not utilize an asset most Americans have in their homes that will not call on them to actually contribute financially?
Books are the answer, the books everyone has on shelves in their homes. There is a thriving used book market on Amazon.com that makes it easy to sell used books.
The orphan girls at Home of Hope will provide a service that puts a new and exciting spin on the old books-for-charity model. The orphan girls are the link between the donor's books and potential buyers, in other words, using Amazon.com to sell donors' old books online.
HERE'S HOW IT WORKS
Donors, using a simple form on the Home of Hope website www.homeofhopeindia.org, email to the girls in India a list of the books they can sell. The girls research current pricing on Amazon.com, set a price and post the titles. Once a book is sold, the girls send an email and mailing label to the donor. The proceeds go into an account for the girls' education.
At the heart of this approach is a partnership between donor and the orphan girls. And, there's no warehouse; overhead is inconsequential. The money earned will flow unimpeded into the education fund. In a way, what we are talking about is a unique concept: "just-in-time charity". It's about using the instantaneous business environment that the Internet provides to fund orphan education in India.
The outcomes are multiple. The books, which would have probably never been read again, go to a buyer. The girls develop useful skills in e-commerce and entrepreneurship as well as earn funds to continue their desperately needed formal education. The donor feels the satisfaction of having done all this, just by mailing some books that had been collecting dust. Simple, yet powerful.
The beauty of this concept is that anyone who has books and Internet access can participate. And participate is exactly what they do. There's no need to write checks, only the willingness to ship some books they've already read. People actually get to DO something, and there's no end to how involved they can become. Most obviously they can tell friends and colleagues about it. Or they can even collect other people's books and offer them to the girls for sale. And it never becomes too complicated or time consuming. Just list one day and ship another. The girls in India do all the work.
PROJECTED INCOME
With the average day laborer earning $2 a day in India and a junior college education costing about $1,200 a year, it is not difficult to see that even a small margin on book sales will have a profound effect. Our initial goal is $10,000 a year, which will provide tuition, books and expenses for all the girls currently of college age.
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