As the school continues to grow, the range of activities it performs increases and the quality of staff we can attract improves, costs continue to rise. We envisage this will be the case for the next 15 years, or more. However in the long-run, we hope the school can start income generating activities with the children, that at least go some way to covering the costs. Already we have started using sewing machines & rudimentary wood-work with the children, amongst other things, and hope that over time activities such as this can start generating a small income, helping sustain the school. As the first and second generation of graduates from our school, become more socially mobile, we hope that they will also help support the school financially.

Currently however, all of our money comes from donations, and this is the way it will be for a few years to come. Though our cost per child is relatively high for India, they’re incredibly low when compared to most schools in the UK. We feel this slightly higher cost is justified because of the innovative work we’re doing in quite a difficult environment. Many of our ideas don’t take at the first attempt, but we continue to experiment and learn, and hope the benefits of what comes out of Hunar Ghar will have a much wider impact than just the one community, through replication of the ideas and methods that work.