Project 16 for the Hope Tree Group is to provide financial assistance to purchase study materials for 500 underprivileged students in the state of Odisha, India. Odisha is one of the poorest states in India.
It was in Odisha that Australian Baptist missionary, Graham Steins, and his two sons were burnt alive while sleeping in their car in a remote village. On 24 December 2007, extremist Hindu organizations carried out a brutal assault on Christians during Christmas celebrations in the Kandhamal district of Odisha. The aftermath saw the destruction of 400 churches, 4,000 houses, and claimed 500 lives, with over 75,000 people displaced.
In 2018, Missionary Society of St Thomas (MST) Missionaries took up the challenge of evangelisation in this area and started working in over 90 remote villages in Kandhamal and few other nearby districts in the state.
The missionaries focused on educational and charitable initiatives together with establishing new Christian communities. The government schools are not running properly in these areas. In most of the primary schools only one or two teachers come few days each week and teach. Children go to school to have the midday meal supplied in the school. Missionaries established 42 tuition centres in these villages, offering remedial classes to over 1000 children.
Fr Joseph Cheriampanat, Episcopal Vicar for the Mission, requests ₹110000INR ($2200AUD) to buy education materials like slates, pens, pencils and notebooks. In remote villages children still use slate and pencil for learning.
