The Association Malar Trust was created in 2006 to design and implement forms of aid in the educational, social and health for the benefit of rural communities in India, especially in the district of Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu. The Italian Association works through the corresponding Indian Association Malar Trust India, based in Poonjeri (near Mahabalipuram).

More specifically, based on needs reported to us by our Indian employees, the fields of activity are:
• Educational Centers;
• Nurseries;
• financial support to students through scholarships for study;
• financial aid to public schools;
• health and social care;
• projects for the solution of current problems in cooperation with local voluntary organizations;
• support and funding of local associations.

The Association does not have any administration cost: all funds go to the ongoing projects.

MALAR TRUST ONLUS

This is what we do

Educational Centers
One of the main objectives of Malar Trust Onlus is set up day-care centers to help the poorest students not to drop out of school. The centers offer a service of afternoon school where children can find a comfortable place to study and recreational activities, assisted by teachers professionally appropriate; through the centers are also distributed school uniforms and educational materials.
The goal, consistent with the funds available, is to open a Tuition Center in the largest possible number of villages in the area to help children that want and deserve to continue their studies until completion of the basic course of at least ten years.
The Association presently operates eight centers and assists almost 300 children in six villages.

Nurseries
kindergartens (Balwadis) are also running in some of the Centers where activities are carried out in the afternoon. The ambition of the Trust is to open a Balwadi in every village where it already operates an after-school and provide a pre-school education for young children so that they can raise the intellectual development before entering school.
At present, the Trust operates in three villages where in addition to recreational activities we try to ensure, usually malnourished children, a quality diet at least once a day. All children are periodically provided also proteins, vitamins and minerals.

Scholarships
Malar Trust began in June 2007 to sponsor scholarships for the most able students or most in need and to help them in further studies.
In some cases, these are children who attend private schools, suddenly orphaned of father or deprived of necessary financial support for different reasons; in other cases, they are students that after the 10th year wish to continue their studies at high secondary school.
In most cases it is, however, students for whom the scholarship offered by the Trust is the only chance to graduate.
In the school year 2013/14 the trust sponsored over 150 scholarships.
In 2011 we started a community development program for Irula, a tribal people on the margins of the social ladder: to enter pre-school children to English school for which the Trust will pay the entire course of study.

Health care
On 2012 a health care plan was launched, involving about 200 children attending the structures of the Trust. We guarantee a system of medical cards free for children, to allow them to go to the doctor when necessary, at the expense of Malar Trust, and we are also trying to improve nutrition and provide daily nutritional supplements.
On 2013 a plan of specific medical camps was also launched, in cooperation with local hospitals and Universities, to bring pediatricians, oculists and dentists to visit all children and parents directly in the villages

Computer Center
A first small computer center has been opened in 2015 in Poonjeri village to educate children and women from the surrounding villages to a basic use of the computer.

Tailoring Center
In January 2011 was started on an experimental basis, a first sewing school in the village of Irular Pakuti, a second center for disable women was opened in 2012 and a third was inaugurated in June 2013 in Peryar Nagar (Irula Community)
The courses are attended by women from the village and others from neighboring villages and offers two hours of daily lessons of embroidery and sewing by hand or machine.

Support for schools
The Trust aims to improve the quality of public school systems in locations where there are Tuition Center through the construction of toilets, drinking water supply, electrical connection, installation of fans and gaming equipment in the classrooms and equipment sports in the backyard.

We are convinced that, thanks to the sum of many small and also help the interest and involvement of so many sensitive people, can be given valid responses to the needs of those who have many more problems than us.