Christians encourage education of Indian Dalits

A Christian ministry is working to help educate the children of Dalit communities in India and spreading the Gospel to more of the “untouchables” of Indian society in the process.

According to Mission Network News, an Indian Dalit is the victim of an atrocity every 20 minutes. Women are especially hard hit, with around 1.3 million of them forced to do manual scavenging, cleaning open sewers and worse to earn their living. Some have even been reportedly stripped naked, raped and killed because of their low-caste status.

Serve India Ministries (SIM) is using its Stepping Stone Ministries to reach out to poor Dalit children.

Ebenezer Samuel, President of SIM, said, "Over 100 million Indian children have no education. So Stepping Stone is an after-school programme that helps children with their education. They also learn about the Lord Jesus."

The programme aims to make life easier for children in public schools, where they can face discrimination.

"The administration discriminates against the children from the so-called Dalit or untouchable communities. When they do well in their studies, they are not encouraged. When they are not able to do well, they are encouraged to drop out," he said.

Samuel added that their efforts were being used to reach more people for Christ.

"The Dalit Christians are considered developed, or liberated," he said. "They're not bracketed with the Hindu Dalits. So when the Christians reach out to the Dalit Hindus or the Dalit Muslims, it does them a huge help.

"The children as well as adults gravitate toward Christians now that they know they are compassionate and very helpful. Of late, we're seeing lots of these families coming to our pastors for counseling."

SIM is currently helping over 2,000 children at 55 centres across India, although the ministry does not provide any physical aid, such as books or clothes.

Samuel said, "They know we're not enticing them with gifts. It's basically a ministry of relationship. Helping children with their education is all that they receive, and they appreciate that."