Change is gradual but if you keep doing certain things and follow the processes every day, you eventually start to see results. What are these results, you may ask? Our senior children who play football are also great and caring coaches to the younger children. They are able to draw up training plans and implement them, something that one does not find even among licensed coaches in India today. All of them know how to conceptualize large events, prepare budgets and make them a reality. We organize the Raja Hriday Shah Golden Baby League every year, an event that is entirely run by children and sees participation of teams from 30+ villages. Inspired by this year’s success at the Subroto Cup as well as club selections, more girls and boys are participating in the baby league. Children who participated in the first year have evolved well as they have continued to practice – something that they don’t do otherwise. All our children are Computer-literate with our senior students learning to code in Python and HTML. We have already shared with you how 4 teams comprising some of these students won the Code to Enhance Learning hackathon last year. This year, a new set of children is participating, and the previous winners have taken on the role of mentors to this batch. All children from our residential program are healthy, vaccinated, dewormed and show no signs of anemia. Before joining us, they were anemic, weak and underweight. There are regular health check-ups that have unearthed and dealt with health issues such as hearing and vision problems, persistent stomach aches, etc. Thanks to all the support from our Partners, donors and institutions, we are able to continue our work every year. In FY 2022-23, we have been supported by the Union Bank Social Welfare Trust, Feeding India by Zomato, Healthplix Technologies and Mylo. Other than these, the mainstay of our funding effort is individuals, and we are very fortunate that many of them have been supporting our work for multiple years. We ran a campaign around Daan Utsav in Diwali on the Give India platform. We raised INR 23,78,769/- Our annual budget for FY 2022-23 is Rs. 1.32 crore that is helping us work with 460 total children across Mandla, Dindori and Anuppur districts of eastern MP with a staff of 36 people. Priorities going forward: We have started our fundraising efforts for FY 2023-24 so that we are in a comfortable position to execute our plans for next year. Our key priorities are:

Starting and finishing Phase 1 of construction of our campus on the 4 acre land acquired in Mandla district HQ. The campus has been planned with a total capacity of 300 residential students. Phase 1 comprises 2 separate dormitories for girls and boys, a dining area and the football ground.

An intake of up to 50 new children, taking the total strength of our residential program to 160 students in FY 2023.

Shifting the boys from Class 10 and above to Mandla to access better schooling and ground facilities

Training both girls and boys to compete in elite level competitions

Preparing coding aspirants for technology opportunities in higher education

Beginning training to crack armed force entrance exams for Class 11 students

Using the Golden Baby League to build awareness and action against gutkha and tobacco consumption among minors – this is a very deep-rooted problem that has an entire generation of children addicted during their most productive years.