"Snehalaya" meaning "the home with love", is a care home for disabled and destitute children, homeless women and the aged, including a school for special needs, multi-sensory room, vocational training and health centre spread out in an area of 25 acres with facilities for hydro & physio therapy, yoga & meditation with its own gardens, farms, orchards, Gaushala (cow shed), temple, sports & play fields and more. So far we have been working towards health and education but now with opening of Snehalaya, we are starting integrated development work to achieve better standards of hygiene, health, sanitation, education, vocational and industrial training and employment opportunities in the villages. In rural India, agriculture is the most common way of earning a living. Nearly 70% of people in rural India remain illiterate. Though there are a few Government run primary schools, they mostly remain unmanned without teachers. To achieve our goals for sustainable development, education is an essential component. We would like to start the School project in Snehalaya to achieve these goals at a cost of £250,000. This would pay for construction and equipping this school as well as maintenance for the first three years. After this time, the school should be self sustainable, with the capacity to help 500 local children esp. girls from surrounding villages. In last six months, we have carried out a survey among villages in the ten km area surrounding Snehalaya. There are 43 villages in this area with a total population of about 250,000. 45% of these are children. Amongst school going children up to the age of 16 years, there are 55% male and 45% female children, but 90% of the female children do not attend schools. Though 70% of male children do attend primary schools until the age of 11, only 30% go to school after this age. Out of total population 1,408 have gone for college education which included only 12 females. Most of the girls in villages remain uneducated and undergo oppression throughout their adult lives, which in turn leads to same future for their children in a vicious circle. We are running a school for special needs with vocational training centre for children in Snehalaya and those from local community. Five more cottages have been commissioned in Aug.08. At present we have 57 children there though plan to make it a facility for 200 disabled children. A 30 bedded primary care rural hospital is functional on site since August 2007, to provide much needed health care to the residents in Snehalaya and the people from surrounding villages. We plan to build the intigrated school on site following the model of PDPD society for the main stream school for girls, with their theme of education for change, for the girls by giving incentives to parents for sending their girls to school to complete their education, along with vocational and small scale industrial training to provide them an independant start in their adult life. This will empower them to seek a better future for themselves and for their children. The building cost of the school is £125,000 A land area of five acres is already alloted for this school project within the campus with market value of Rs. 80 laks (Approx £100,000) received as donation from founder in the memory of late Dr. Meena Sharma. £75,000 is required towards maintenance for the first three years, by which time we are sure it will be self sustainable.