India: a country between poverty and upswing. The economy of this country of 1.38 billion inhabitants is growing fast. The growth rates of the gross domestic product are regularly above 8%. But not everyone is benefiting from this growth. At the same time, India is home to the largest number of poor people in the world: a good 268 million people have to get by on less than 1.90 US dollars a day.
The country's capital confirms this picture. An estimated 28 million people currently live in the Delhi metropolitan region - more than two million of them in slums without access to clean drinking water or sanitary facilities. Most of the people affected neither have sufficient schooling nor vocational training. Under these precarious conditions, the thought of educating a child fades into the background in a poor family. This is where the Samuel Foundation gets down to work in favour of young people; enabling those with no access to the education system to receive technical education in one of the country's most important economic sectors: the textile industry.