Laksmi drives her orange rickshaw through the Prakash Tekadi slums in Mumbai, India. She transports passengers every morning, then works at her small shop in the afternoon. Her two businesses provide for herself and her adult son. Yet, this wasn’t always the case.

Residents of the Prakash Tekadi slum, like Laksmi, were born into extreme poverty. The small community of squatters lacks access to basic services like medical care and education. Basic literacy skills, like reading and writing, are rare.

GMP Relief and Development partner Hosanna Ministries provides vocational training and literacy classes for the residents of Prakash Tekadi. These classes help give people the skills they need to gain employment or start a business to earn a secure income.

Laksmi attended Hosanna Ministries literacy and tailoring classes. She is very grateful for this opportunity. She not only gained practical skills, but the self-confidence to start her two businesses. Laksmi set up a small shop in her house and applied to the government for financial help to buy a rickshaw. Without literacy skills, the application would have been impossible.

With the money she earns from the two businesses, Laksmi wants to give her son a better life. With her new source of income, she has been able to pay for her son to take part in a drug rehabilitation program. She hopes this will give him a second chance to start over.

All this is possible with your support of literacy and vocational training classes. Your support helps many people like Laksmi gain the skills they need to earn an income and begin to break the cycle of poverty.

Now, every day is a new opportunity for Laksmi, as she drives her orange rickshaw through the slums each morning.

Hosanna Ministries’ Vocational Training Project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).