GFA's Child Sponsorship Program Uplifts India's OutCaste for Christ
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
August 4, 2005
(AgapePress) - Thousands of the most at-risk children in India have a chance for a better life, thanks to a Texas-based missionary organization called Gospel for Asia (GFA). Several years ago, missionaries with the ministry began an outreach designed to take God's Word to children of India's Dalits -- the outcaste people formerly known as untouchables -- as well as to other low-caste and tribal families.Today, nearly 19,000 students are enrolled in GFA's "Bridge of Hope" program, where they receive school uniforms, food, and after-school education and Bible study. For less than $30 a month, a child enrolled in this sponsorship program can be provided with education, nutrition, medical care and social skills development training.
Pastor Benny, who works with GFA, says without the benefits provided through the Bridge of Hope project, the children this outreach targets would face a bleak future in India. "Most of these children belong to Dalit communities and other backward communities," he notes. "They need education, they need safe water, they need nutritious food -- those are the children that we're talking about."
The Christian ministry's outreach is designed to give children like these throughout India a chance to break out of the oppressive caste system in their society, in which rigid class divisions limit opportunities for those born into --or below -- a particular stratum of the traditional social hierarchy. The Dalits are people who fall outside the four Hindu castes, which are -- from highest to lowest -- the Brahmins (priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors), Vaishyas (merchants and skilled craftsmen) and Shudras (farmers and laborers).
The untouchables are considered beneath the lowest caste, and the more contemporary term for them, "Dalit," is variously translated "crushed," "oppressed" or "stepped on." Indian leader Mahatma Ghandi coined the more compassionate but less preferred term Harijan or "Children of God" for the group formerly known as the untouchables in India, and he worked to eradicate the officially sanctioned discrimination and oppression they faced.
As a result, untouchability was eventually abolished throughout India officially; but social practice has lagged behind policy, particularly in rural villages. Hence, many Dalits and members of other non-caste tribes have continued to suffer the cyclical effects of poverty, substandard education, and lack of employment or economic opportunity due to discrimination.
However, Pastor Benny believes the Bridge of Hope program is changing all that by giving non-caste children the means to compete in a society that has formerly excluded them. "I'm absolutely sure that this ministry that we're doing here is going to significantly increase the percentage of 'little people' in this society -- people that are able to do jobs and earn a decent living in the days to come," the GFA minister asserts.
And, with a nod to Bridge of Hope's evangelical focus, Pastor Benny adds, "Not only that. This ministry is going to make sure that all of these people will someday be 'Children of God.'" As GFA continues to operate Christian schools and programs among India's 300 million "untouchables," the ministry reports that more and more of this population is beginning to leave the caste system for a new life of faith, hope, and a future filled with greater opportunity than ever.
