Rickshaw school bus is proving a winner

The rickshaw school bus in operation

This three-wheel rickshaw puts a new slant on the school bus run after it was provided by Royton charity supporters.

The rickshaw, which accommodates up to 12 children, takes them to the school set up by Family Aid Direct in the village of Ananda Bazar, in Orissa, India.

The new bus will bring students in from the outlying areas, and another rickshaw is being purchased for a second school.

Family Aid Direct was the idea of worshippers at Bethesda Baptist Church, Rochdale Road, which encourages people to give regular donations of £15 to £50 to help small-scale projects in India.

Pastor Geoff Goodwin, from the Bethesda Church, said: “It gives a new meaning to the term school bus.”

The charity supports eight schools in India where teachers are university educated and speak good English, which is the language of government, newspapers and the Internet in India.

He added: “It has been said that if you educate a child in India you immediately raise the quality of life for the future of its family and this is what we are working towards.

“India has 650,000 villages that still need schools for their children.

“If any readers would be prepared to sponsor a new school, we have the people on the ground who are able to make it happen.

“Normally villages have a community building that can be used for the school and after start-up costs of about £200 a village school costs less than £100 per month to run.”

Another project, providing new tubewells for fresh water, has proved invaluable as temperature in Orissa have reached 45C in the past three months and many traditional wells have run dry.

He said: “People have been coming to our pump from seven villages in the locality and it has been in used from 4am until 11pm every day.

“We are so proud and believe it must have saved many lives and prevented much illness. We hope to drill more tube wells in the near future, at £200 to £300 per well.”

Contact Mr Goodwin at geoffgoodwin@gmail.com  or ring 652 6697.