One of the main health issues in Buwan Kothi - like in many other villages in India - is the quality of drinking water.

Due to the old drinking-water pipes leaking and running close to the sewage pipes, the water is often contaminated. As a result, there have been many cases of yellow fever and typhoid, as well as cancer.

The best solution would be to install a filtering system to clean the water from the canal running through the village, which could be partially funded by a government grant as well as money raised by BKIT. This would go hand-in-hand with an education project aimed at teaching both children and adults about health issues including healthy food, safe drinking water, and hygiene. This would also help to tackle the ever-increasing number of cases of diabetes and other lifestyle-related diseases.

One of the main projects of BKIT was to build the Gilly Mundy Memorial Community School, a charity-funded education centre in Buwan Kothi. This would replace the old and poorly attended local school and decrease the need to send children to expensive and distant private schools.

Thanks to our efforts, the school was built within one year of launching our Major Appeal and currently has over 200 pupils.

Our plans envisage a section of the school that will be used as a Community Resource Centre and a library, giving local villages a focal point where people can meet socially, discuss the best ways to improve life in Buwan Kothi and the surrounding area and continue a dialogue with us on how BKIT may be able to help them.

The Community Resource Centre would also be used to run courses and workshops with themes ranging from looking after the environment to healthy eating, photography, and the arts.

While money has been raised to build the school, BKIT is keen to also set up friendly links between schoolchildren in the UK and Haryana as well as sending books, stationery and other materials. The first steps in building these links have begun, with contacts established between the Gilly Mundy Memorial Community School and children at Estcots Primary in West Sussex and Weston Park Primary in Haringey, north London.

BKIT aims to set up a series of arts projects in order to develop young people's creative and communicative skills, especially focusing on the environment they live in. One of our original ideas was to provide children with camera equipment and a photography tutor in order to identify and cultivate local talent. Eventually, the children's work would be exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally.

The first steps in developing this work began in 2008. For further details, see our Arts page.