Where we work - making a real difference

Help Free the Children Trust is based in Nelson, New Zealand; a region of great beauty, a wonderful climate and an enviable lifestyle. From there our volunteers travel to India to work at the Niranjana Public Welfare Trust School and Orphanage in Bihar State: a real exercise in contrasts.

For the landless poor in Bihar there is little employment except in the quarries and brick kilns or sporadic agricultural work. Employers here prefer to use child labourers as they are the cheapest workers and poor families cannot survive without the income provided by their children, who start working at the age of six. The homes of the poorest families are small, windowless mud huts with no toilets, electricity or water. They are bitterly cold in winter and are vulnerable to leaks and damage during the monsoon season. Few of the villagers can afford adequate clothing or warm blankets and the live without beds, tables or chairs.

There are no doctors or hospitals in the rural areas and even basic healthcare is unaffordable for those people who live in abject poverty. It is common for women and their newborn babies to die from lack of medical attention. One in four children dies before the age of five.

The rigid caste system suppresses women socially, economically and politically. The conditions for those from the lowest and “untouchable” castes are dire and the literacy rate amongst those women and girls is around 1 percent.

These people cannot change their circumstances on their own but the Niranjana Public Welfare Trust School and Orphanage is making a difference to their lives, breaking down those barriers and empowering the young people through education.

Help Free the Children Trust too is playing its part in changing these circumstances from hopeless to hopeful and you can be part of this too!