Chapelwood Foundation Impact
The Foundation funded PACE $4,000 which covered 50% of the cost for their After School Enrichment Program (ASE). Rational for offering ASE Program - In India the median age at marriage is 17. The tipping point age, however, is 13 (tipping point age is the age at which the frequency of marriage first increases significantly). The PLC students are no exception to this statistic. Child marriage is the greatest challenge facing PLC. While parents are responsible for some instances of marriage it is crucial to note that girls generally always acquiesce.
PACE Universal’s Story
PACE (Promise of Assurance to Children Everywhere) founder Deepa Biswas Willingham was born and raised in Kolkata, India, where she found a love for education rooted in her childhood. Deepa's father, a teacher, and her mother, a humanitarian, risked their lives to harbor Muslim refugees in a Christian college when the conflict between Hindus and Muslims broke out in Kolkata in 1946. Their example instilled in Deepa the necessity to respect all human beings, regardless of caste, color, religion, or gender.
Over the past twenty years, a great deal of Deepa's time and personal resources have been dedicated to the founding and developing the PACE Learning Center (PLC) in Piyali Junction, India, born out of a passion to counteract child trafficking through the education of girls and the empowerment of women. In Piyali Junction, most of the population lived on less than $1 per day, and before the school was founded, literacy for girls and women was just over 50%. In 2003, PLC opened in a two-room rented house and welcomed 85 female students in the first six months.
Today, over 200 girls are day students ranging in age from Pre-K to the 12th grade of high school, and nearly 40 women are currently enrolled in the vocational program. These women learn the skills to help support the financial stability of their families. Sewing skills, tailoring, and jewelry-making are the primary curriculum in the vocational program. Students also learn co-op farming, reading, writing, and accounting skills to support their professional endeavors.
PACE Universal is producing a ripple effect of change by offering an educational day school model to girls and women with a greater chance of domestic abuse, living in severe poverty, or trafficking. Their graduates have a greater chance of finding economic stability in the professional world and returning to invest in the future of their community's well-being.
