Our story

In January 2005 Help Free the Children Trust’s founder, Gary Griffiths, made his seventh visit to India but this time he got right off the beaten track. He went to Bihar, the poorest state in India, where he visited remote villages where the people live in appalling conditions. Here Gary discovered children working in quarries, some as young as six years old. He spent time with organisations who are doing practical work there at a grassroots level, devoting their lives to freeing the children of Bihar from forced labour in hazardous conditions, and Gary determined to help their cause.

Our story also focuses on a remarkable man, Siddhartha Kumar, who has a legendary reputation of love and compassion for desperately poor children.

Siddhartha established the Niranjana Public Welfare Trust School and Orphanage, to free the children of the very poor.

As a young man he worked in an insurance company in Calcutta while also doing voluntary work at Mother Theresa’s Home for the Poor. He wanted to become a permanent worker for her but Mother Theresa directed him to keep working in insurance until he had saved enough money to establish a school for the poor in his home village of Sujata, Bodh Gaya, in Bihar.

Siddhartha did just that, returning to Sujata Village to register the non-profit Niranjana Public Welfare Trust and with enough of his personal savings to establish the trust school and orphanage.

The Niranjana School offers free education of the highest quality to more than 200 students, including 60 orphans. Orphans, ranging from five to 15, also receive free hostel accommodation, clothing, bedding, healthcare and three nutritious meals a day. There is no discrimination between religion, caste or gender. Low caste girls, even “untouchables”, form half of the school roll, with all students united by wearing a uniform. Donations from overseas donors and orphan sponsors have allowed the school and orphanage to expand and also develop school branches in two of the most isolated villages.

When Gary decided to support this work towards a future without child labour the Help Free the Children Trust was formed, committed to providing financial support to these projects. The trust has five trustees, mostly professional people with experience of conditions in India.