We feel it’s important to give something back and donate 10% of our gross profit (i.e. before we’ve paid our wages and topped up the biscuit tin) to the Life Association charity.
It all began when a man with a good heart and clear vision asked Life Association for a little bit of money to help him buy a push bike. The man, Paul Raju was travelling up to 40 miles a day out to rural slum villages in Andhra Pradesh supporting orphaned children and lepers (known as the ‘untouchable’ people). Paul was keen to start a church and orphanage to bring the community together. On hearing about the work in Northern India that the Life Association team had been supporting for several years, Paul approached us to help him make his vision a reality. After visiting the area we gave some money for a push bike, a little bit of land and built a straw roofed building… the rest is history. Today there is a bore hole well for safe clean water and a concrete building which provides education for some 150 children and houses 80 orphans.
The desire is to develop this project across India, the next focus being a fishing village that was devastated in the tsunami.
Teachers, health workers and widows who care for the children are all supported through the project, in addition to the infrastructure costs and building maintenance there are also requirements for food and educational materials. It costs just 50p a day to feed, clothe, educate and house an orphan and the cost of setting up a health centre with trained nurses and a doctor costs £3600, every penny really can make a difference.