The Project
History
The Orphanage
Support
Partnership and Cooperation
TRUP
The Project
Since Since the beginning of 2005, a small group of young people has begun to support and organize financial aid for an orphanage in India that was on the verge of closing ist doors.
Helping out an orphanage may not be the most creative of all ideas – however, leaving about 60 children to themselves isn’t either. The contact between act!orissa e.V. (registered society), the orphanage, and the Indian organization TRUP, which is managing the project at the moment, was established during a trip to India by one of the organization’s founders and has been grown ever since. This is also owed to the initiation of work camps, which bring groups of young Germans to India every year. In these work camps, alongside performing minor labours, the focus lies on intercultural exchange.
The orphanage was founded in the 90’s by an American Baptists’ church. After the missionary died in the late 90’s, the church terminated its funding. In this situation, we decided to found an organization that supports the children. This resulted in the birth of act!orissa in 2005. Since its foundation, both the number of people working within the organisation, as well as the number of sponsors, have steadily grown, resulting in a remarkable success story.
The orphanage is located in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. In Orissa there is little indication of India’s current economic boom, and it is infamously known for a series of devastating floods and storms in the recent past.
The orphanage is situated in Cuttack, close to the capital of Orissa, Bhubaneshwar. In 2009, act!orissa relocated the orphanage from the rural area of Phulbani to Cuttack following political and religious riots, in which hundreds of mostly christian people were killed and ten thousands became refugees. The children currently live in a rented house as an interim solution to the lack of permanent housing. act!orissa is working on funding and constructing a new house that will be finished at the end of 2011.
Approximately 60 children live in the orphanage, most of them have lost one or both of their parents. Before regular funding was set up by act!orissa, the older children had to work the surrounding fields for the local farmers and go without a basic education. However, they now have the choice to attend school.
Only 700 Dollar per month can evolve every child’s basic needs are met. It is sufficient to buy food, the most necessary clothes, and medicine.
In our opinion, as long as the organization’s future financial situation is as unclear as it is right now, we should launch the project as optimistically as possible, but at the same time as realistically as necessary. We do not want to end up in a situation where we have to cease the payments only because we overestimated our capacities. We hope to increase the payments in the future.
In the near future, we plan to finance small projects, especially the smaller ones that will eventually enable the orphanage to stand on its own feet economically. For example, the garden’s maintenance is a first step which can be achieved at a low cost. Participants of the work camps have begun the process, making certain areas into arable land for this purpose. Also, courses on ecological farming are planned to teach the fundamentals of sustainable farming.
The same year the organization was founded, a friend of ours, who is a student in architecture, travelled to India to complete an internship, during the course of which, in cooperation with local workers, he built an extensive brick building, housing a kitchen and a dining hall (see bottom picture), which replaced the old and run-down mud hut that had previously served as a kitchen.
Most importantly, we feel these 700 Dollar per month payment can give the children the room they are entitled to. They are not forced to work, but can instead attend school.
Ever since the American missionaries ended their payments, a small Indian non-governmental organization, TRUP, has – rather poorly – taken care of the orphanage. However, this local organization has exhausted its financial resources, and will no longer be able to make regular payments.
Over time, our loose contact with Mr Chabila and his organization TRUP, which we established during various trips to India, has turned into a very friendly relationship. We fully trust him, and his honorary efforts always impress us anew. We consider ourselves direct supporters of the orphanage. In order to organize this support on the ground, we rely on a very close cooperation with TRUP. We transfer the payments into a special account of TRUP, which is allocated for the orphanage. We then receive a legally certified financial document showing that the money was used for the orphanage. Additionally, starting this year, we will hold annual work camps that document the progress of our projects, producing photographical and statistical reports.
TRUP is an acronym standing for „Tribal and Rural Upliftment Project.” Since the beginning of the 1970s, this group has been active, especially on behalf of single women. Recently, their focus lies on improving rural infrastructure, which is especially miserable in Orissa. For several years, TRUP has organized work camps, bringing together young westerners and young Indians, who perform municipal and social work together. TRUP organizes work camps within the ASA programmes or in cooperation with Kolping (both german Organisations of International Development).
