Arunachal pradesh

In 2001 a organization from Delhi asked the ALICE PROJECT to accept a group of Chakma boys on humanitarian grounds. Being stateless, these young people had no access to education in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. We agreed and started with eight boys and a teacher who could speak the Chakma language. As the school had so far only worked with Indian children, these students offered a new and real challenge. They were far away from their families, were homesick and stuck together closely as a group.

Arunachal Pradesh is a state of  India, located in the far NorthEast. It borders on Assam and Nagaland to the south, and with Burma, Bhutan, and China/Tibet in the North. The ALICE PROJECT school is located in Bodhisatta Deban village on the banks of the Noa-Dehing river next to the Namdapha National Park. This isolated and backward area has neither electricity nor medical facilities. It is about 24 kilo meters East of the nearest town, Miao Bazaar. There is neither a proper road, nor a bus service: the only way to get there is by bike or on foot. Alternatively you can use a dinghy to cross two rivers. Founded in 2009, the school was built by the villagers. Today nine teachers offer free education to 94 children from poor families. Twenty students are residents in the hostel built to accommodate the girls coming from the villages further away. In 2011 the President of the ALICE PROJECT, Tenzin Tsewang, visited the school. “I was so impressed by the good and hard work being done here. This school is really making a difference to the life of these villagers. They are so poor that it moved me deeply.”

In 2013, the government has recognized the school until the fifth grade. The goal in the future is to extend the project until at least the completion of the process of higher education and to implement its assistance to the villagers.