India campus prepares for back to school, several campus improvements underway; story of one girl’s 8-year path to high school graduation and move to college

Photo: Girls living at our India Girls Home are happy that new playground equipment is being installed along with several new security measures as the new school year begins next week.

As our native team strives to meet new government requirements for properly registering all the children on our India campus, we currently have 40 children (ages 6-13) re-registered in our on-campus primary school for the new semester which begins this Monday, June 18. They will be studying their native Telugu and Hindi languages, English, math, science, and social studies. In addition, we have 35 older children (ages 13-16) currently re-registered to attend higher classes off-campus, which also begin on June 18th. The older children will be studying their native Telugu and Hindi languages, English, math, physical science, natural science, and social studies. Our native team is still going through the registration process for all the students at the orphan home, and we are hoping to accept some new rescues and other applicants next week who will also be enrolled at our school.

Also in preparation for the new school semester, security improvements to our campus are underway as demanded by the Department of Children’s Homes upon a recent inspection, mostly regarding the height of the campus wall which needed to be raised 3 feet higher. Construction to the campus wall began on May 8th. It is now complete and just requires some finishing touches which will be completed by the end of this month. Our next security project will be to to install cement window frames and iron entry gates for the Girls Home as extra measures toward securing their protection and comfort.

Thanks to your support, on June 25th we will be installing new playground equipment on campus, such as swing sets, slides, see-saws, merry-go-rounds, and Jacob’s Ladders. This is a great blessing to the children since our old playground equipment faithfully served hundreds of orphans over its lifetime (about 10 years), and all of the old items have finally given out with rust due to the salty coastal humid air. The children are very excited about all of the new, safe playground equipment because they love to play on it when they are on break from their diligent studies.

We want to share the success story of a girl who lived at our orphan home from a young age and is now graduating from high school and continuing her education in college. This is 15-year-old Madhia’s* redemptive story:

Madhia came to live at our orphan home when she was 7 years old. Madhia’s family was very impoverished — her parents were daily wage laborers, but her father was a drunkard and neglected his wife and children. They were suffering from a famine in their native area, so the family used to travel around to find work. They were not able to earn enough income to send Madhia to school, so when they heard about our orphan home at Peace City, they brought their daughter to live with us and attend our on-campus school. Since then Madhia has studied hard and done well in her academic classes. She experienced some health challenges, but we were able to take care of her and she is now feeling well and healthy. Now that Madhia has graduated from high school, she is going to pursue her education in college where she will study nursing with the eventual hopes of becoming a teacher. Madhia is happy to move on to college, but she is also sad to leave the orphan home which forever changed her life.

Our field director reports, “She said that she will always be thankful to the orphan home which gave her a new life by providing food, safe water, great care with love, a very good and beautiful dining hall, a wonderful dormitory to live in, good bedding to sleep in, solar power when there was no electricity, and many other blessings we have here. She made so many good memories here. She says it is sad to leave us, but she is going with victory and more happiness because she has been promoted to college. She says will always be thankful for us.”

Our field director also commented, “When Madhia left she went with tears, and we also felt the same. However, we give thanks to God for her life and we want to see her succeed. Please pray for her. Madhia sends many thanks to her sponsor for supporting her education and her care.”

Take Action: sign up for a monthly donation to help sustain our operating budget | shop Amazon through this link — as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases

Take a Closer Look: view more photos from this project and others

* Story names are changed to protect our program participants.

Posted in: