Governor Devanand Konwar inaugurates the residential school in Bodhgaya on Monday. Picture by Suman

Frenchwoman Jeanne Pere used to run a residential school, Jeanamitabh Free Residential School, for underprivileged children from a rented accommodation in Bodhgaya. On Monday, her dream of a permanent address was realised when Governor Devanand Konwar inaugurated a double-storeyed building at Rattibigha village of the town.

The permanent school building at Rattibigha village was built over two years with donations from abroad. Here, Jeanne would be able to accommodate at least 500 children from financially weak families — twice the number of students she could help at the rented building.

Jeanne’s school imparts free education from nursery to Class X. Food, lodging, uniforms and medical facilities are provided to the students free of cost.

Popular as Mummyji in Bodhgaya, Jeanne had been running her school for the past 10 years from the rented accommodation at Tikabigha village, around 1.5km south of Mahabodhi Mahavihara. She used to come across children begging near the world heritage temple on her visits to the town before 2002.

Affected by their plight, she decided to shift base from France and set up a trust, schools and several other facilities to help the underprivileged people in Bodhgaya. She formed the Jeanamitabh Welfare Trust in 2002 to serve the financially weak people.

At the new building, the school will also run a free computer training centre for girls in and around Bodhgaya. The building, named the Devanand Konwar building, has four dormitories and 10 classrooms for the students.

Help for the school building came from the Rotary Club of France apart from residents of La Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius and Canada, said Jeanne. A 15-member delegation, including Rotary representatives from France, also inaugurated the dormitories on Monday.

Governor Konwar praised Jeanne’s efforts for the uplift of the people of Bodhgaya in the past 10 years.

Apart from the residential institution, Jeanamitabh Welfare Trust secretary Anand Vikram told The Telegraph that at present it runs six primary schools. The schools are in Khiriawan, Rattibigha, Tikabigha and Uruvela villages (in Bodhgaya), Cherki village (on the Gaya-Sherghati road) and Giddi Basti village in Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand. He said the trust also runs two stitching training centres, a computer training centre, a spoken English centre and painting training centre for women to make them self-employed.