Children make art at Mahabodhi International Meditation Center (MIMC)’s school in Ladakh, India, where BGR is funding a hot lunch program. Photograph courtesy of MIMC.
By BGR Staff
As Buddhist Global Relief enters its 17th year of service, we celebrate the generosity of our supporters whose conscientious compassion continues to relieve the suffering of chronic hunger and poverty for thousands of people around the world. At our annual projects meeting, held on April 26 and 27, the BGR board approved 60 projects for the 2025–26 grant year.
This year, BGR welcomes a new partner organization, the Mahlathini Development Foundation, whose Young Mothers Care Groups project is responding to the needs of impoverished families in rural KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, and Limpopo, South Africa. Through village-based care groups, 30 single mothers of young children are receiving training and material support for starting home vegetable gardens, as well as education about nutrition, child care, and health care.
The board also approved new projects from three existing BGR partner organizations:
The Mahabodhi International Meditation Center operates a school serving more than 800 children from economically marginalized communities in the Himalayan region of Ladakh. This new project funds a hot meal program at the school, ensuring that all students receive safe, fresh, nutritious food throughout the year.
A new project with BGR partner Ecology Action is supporting an internship program for African and South American educators who want to teach the sustainable agricultural Grow Biointensive method to help farmers grow more food using fewer resources. Using only one-fifth of the water as conventional agriculture, the method can grow a complete diet for a household in 2,000 square feet. After completing the training program, interns are Certified Teachers and return home to train farmers in their local communities. The four interns participating in this year’s Victory Gardens for Peace Training Program are expected to train 2,000 smallholder farmers in the first year following completion of their internship.
In the fishing communities near Entebbe, Uganda, many families face poverty, poor nutrition, familial instability, and limited access to education. Under the guidance of founder and abbot the Most Venerable Bhante Buddharakkhita, longtime BGR partner the Uganda Buddhist Centre has founded an African Buddhist High School program offering academic instruction and vocational training to high-school students from under-resourced families who struggle to afford school fees and basic needs. This project supports a lunch program at the school, providing 120 students with daily nutritious meals as well as mindfulness meditation instruction.
All of us at BGR express our profound gratitude to you, the supporters whose generosity makes this work possible.
