Rajesh Kumar is from Sujata Village, Bihar. When Rajesh was young, he was fortunate enough to have his education funded by Americans Kim, Cedric and Steve Tineo. The Tineos sponsored a group of young students from Sujata Village, including Rajesh. Some of these students pursued higher education, while Rajesh started a school with a simple mission: provide high quality education to give the next generation the same opportunity for a brighter future that he had. Rajesh is grateful for the opportunity to do his work and return the gift he received as a child. He hopes to inspire others to give back as he does, either at Bhavishya Me or beyond.

“I founded Bhavishya Me with my friend Vijay in 2011, two years after we visited Manjhar Village for the first time. While attending university in 2009, we played in a cricket match in Manjhar. We were surprised this remote village lacked a school building. We learned there were no government or private schools in the area and that most of the villagers, including the children, went completely uneducated. Vijay and I helped Anup found Prema Metta, and we thought we should do the same thing here for Manjhar. When I was young, a donor from America paid for my education. I wanted to start the school to give young students the same opportunity that I had. We were fortunate enough to meet a single donor from Japan who donated enough to hire one teacher. The village still did not have a school building, so our first classes took place outside in a grove of trees.

We initially did not have much funding, and we were only able to make minor improvements in the first few years. Thankfully, I was able to travel to Japan on a fundraising trip in 2015. We secured enough funding to construct our current school building. Most recently, we added a bathroom to the building with the help of American volunteers.
Over 100 children from five different villages are enrolled at our school. Four teachers cover English, Math, Hindi, Science, Social Science and General Knowledge from nursery school to the fifth grade level. We also run a small trade school program where 25 adult women learn how to sew. This allows them to create items to sell and contribute to household finances.

We currently need funding to run a school lunch program so that our students can count on at least one meal each school day. Many of them are from poor areas and they go without food some days. We also need funds to pay teacher salaries and purchase new school supplies and uniforms.”

• Bhavishya Me was founded in 2011. It’s located in Manjhar Village, approximately 11 kilometers southeast of Bodhgaya.
• The school consists of one two-floor brick-and-mortar building including two indoor classrooms on the first floor and an open-air classroom on the second floor.
• The school currently has over 100 students and four teachers
• Students learn English, General Knowledge, Hindi, Math, Science and Social Science. Students attend from the nursery to fifth-grade levels.
• After school, Bhavishya Me also operates a sewing center where 25 adult women learn to sew.
• Bhavishya Me needs funding to operate a daily lunch program, pay teacher salaries and purchase new materials for the students.