Hope is Life Foundation will be assisting in the welfare of several orphan children, some infected HIV.AIDS virus, to attend schools in Manipur, India. The Foundation will work with the trustees and the staff of Borni Memorial English School (BMES) to sponsor nearly fifteen orphans help them lead a healthy life and continue with their education.

The school is located in the Pangantabi village in Thoubal District, which is about 80km away from Imphal the capital city of Manipur, India. 

The population of Pangantabi village is approximately 6,000. Most of the villagers are farmers. Their family income depends on the annual harvest. They harvest the crops once in a year. Few of them run small business (shop, home industries e.g. handloom and hand crafts) as income generating industry. Most women do craft work and men work in the farm. The farmers live on an average less than US$1 a day. 

To stay in school is expensive for these children. They are required to buy school uniforms, school shoes and text books which most parents are unable to afford. In addition to this, the schools are suffering from lack of teachers and educational materials. As a result, children are beginnig to drop out of schools as early as grade two due mostly to the high cost of education, poverty and the travel from village to schools.

Currently, there are about 119 girls and 121 boys from ages 3 to 12 attend this school. The schools is unable to provide meals as there are no financial support from the goverment. Some bring food from home and other go hungry. For several children who have difficulties or orphans, the head master provide food on a daily basis. The school has no support from the authorities and most teachers are teaching on a voluntary basis. The financial support for the school comes from he principal and some donors in the village. 

This is the only school for the children in this community. There are many orphans and children infected with HIV.AIDS virus want to study in this school but unbale to do because of financial difficulties. 

The children are encouraged to get involved in socio economic development projects near the school

She is 11-years-old. Her father died. Mother is a laborer and cannot afford to send her to school. Her dream is to become a teacher

This student is 10-years-old. Both her parents died from HIV/AIDS and now she is living with her grandmother. Her dream is to become a doctor so she can serve the poor people in her village.

It was wonderful to see the faces of children and care takers again at the Anganwadis (day care centers) during a visit to Chennai in August 2009.  Most of the children are now attending government schools. After the tsunami in December 2004, the first place we visited was Chennai, India, the birthplace of our Butterfly Project. We visited several Anganwadis which were destroyed by the enormous wave that crashed on their world. They were in an absolute horrible condition. Our Foundation continues to monitor, sustain and evaluate the status of the anganwadis. Most have now been repaired or re-built, but still they need our help. 

Hope is Life Foundation is mainly focussed in Royapuram area in Chennai. There are about 96 day care centers. Children who come to these centers are from very poor families; parents are fishermen, street vendors or daily laborers. One meal is provided by the government. In addition to a meal each child get a boiled egg. Health and nutrition education is also given to the mothers. 

Out of these centers, about 50 need urgent help. These centers need gas stoves, cookers and eduational materials.

Currently, these centers use firewood to cook one daily meal inside and the children suffer from heavy smoke and black carbon soot. This is not healthy to breathe. Our goal is to provide a healthy way of cooking for these children in these 37 day care centers. 

The Butterfly Project is based on the philosophy that we are all capable of transformation. The project involves supplying these poor children with developmentally appropriate educational materials and training. One of the most important parts of the program is for the teachers to become aware of the steps involved in their transformation to becoming better teachers. They learn how to self evaluate their own growth and development. By doing this, the teachers also learn how to help their students similarly transform and reach their individual learning potentials. Therefore, the Butterfly Project not only involves a transformation process for the teachers but also for the students, their families and their communities.

Gas stove costs $25 each and the cooker costs $30 each. A set of educational materials and wooden toys cost $60 per center. 

Staff and care takers of the Day Care Centers in Royapuram district in Chennai, S. India are seen with                          Nat Yogachandra of Hope is Life Foundation. 

Currently, in about 50 day care centers, they use firewood to cook one daily meal inside and the                             children suffer from heavy smoke and black carbon soot.

Each center has about 40 to 50 children

A group of children

Natascha is seen entertaining a group of children infected with HIV/AIDS at the orphanage

4-month old Vee infected with HIV virus 

Asia is confronting a complex and devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic. Many countries, including Vietnam, appear to be on the edge of this epidemic. Migrant workers spend long periods of time away from home and frequently visit sex workers, then return home to infect their spouses, who in turn, pass the virus to their unborn children. Often, many wives discover they have HIV only after their husbands are admitted to the hospital in the final stages of AIDS. Once their husbands die, many wives are abandoned. The society does not accept them. Many children also infected by HIV are abandoned. Many times the children are left on the streets and their mothers simply disappear or if they are lucky, they are left on the doorsteps of someone who cares to take them.

These three girls at the orphanage attend public school 

AIDS-related stigma can lead to discrimination towards people living with HIV/AIDS. AIDS-related discrimination means that people are treated negatively and denied opportunities in their daily life. Discrimination against AIDS victims in predominantly rural area is also on the rise, families often disown HIV positive members and children with HIV/AIDS are frequently thrown out of schools.

Debbie Yogachandra is seen with a girl infected with HIV virus 

“Stigma remains the single most important barrier to public action. It is a main reason why too many people are afraid to see a doctor to determine whether they have the disease, or to seek treatment if so. It helps make AIDS the silent killer, because people fear the social disgrace of speaking about it, or taking easily available precautions. Stigma is a chief reason why the AIDS epidemic continues to devastate societies around the world” - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon

Children living in the orphanage helped built the tower. Materials provided by the Foundation

It all began about 15 years ago, when Mrs. Tasanee Keereepraneed received a frantic message from a local villager in Tha Song Yang, Thailand that a little girl had lost her mother during birth. In Karen culture this is interpreted as a bad omen, and the child is often killed. Having lost her own father at a young age and her children also having lost their father when Tasanee’s husband was murdered, Tasanee decided that she, if anyone should be the person responsible for caring for the orphaned children of The Karen. Tasanee now has 48 children to care for in the Tha Song Yang facility and several children that go to school in Mae Sot for education beyond grade 10.

Children are having dinner at the dinner table

Tha Song Yang is about 3 hours north of Mae Sot on the Thai/Burma border. It is a picturesque Karen village in northern Thailand . It sits next to the Moei River , is surrounded by jungle and beautiful limestone mountains. The orphanage outgrew its old facility and now is in it’s new location opened in Jan-Feb 08, built on 5 acres purchased with a generous donation from Ireland . This new orphanage opened without electricity or water. Electricity has now been installed. Water was carried from the stream daily to provide for the needs. Currently, water during the rainy season has been obtained from the river, however this source dries up during the ‘dry season’ and water must be obtained from much higher in the mountain during that time.

Living Quarters

Tha Song Yang Village is about 3 hours north of Mae Sot province in Thailand, on the Thai/Burmese border. It is a picturesque Karen tribe village in northern Thailand. Here in this village, Mrs. Tasanee Keereepraneed, an elderly woman, runs an orphanage where about 48 underprivileged children live. The orphanage is located next to the Moei River and is surrounded by jungle and beautiful limestone mountains.
The Foundation provided the materials and the labor was provided by the older boys at the orphanage. The children now have access to safe drinking water as well as for all their other necessary requirements all year around.

Natascha and Debbie Yogachandra with the Chief of Village in front of the Learning Center

Hope is Life Foundation collaborates with Cambodian Organization for Research and Development (CORDE) to build learning centers in remote areas of Cambodia to help children, families and society transform through literacy and empowerment, moral development and health programs. Early 2009, a new center was opened by Natascha Yogachandra. These Centers invite the children, youth and adult population to deepen their literacy ability and increase their power to express themselves and take social action to improve their standard of living.

A Farmer donated this piece of land to build the center

Natascha Yogachandra officially opened the Learning Center

Although the Kingdom of Cambodia is rich in natural resources, decades of war and internal conflict have left it one of the world’s poorest countries. The legacy of strife includes social and economic scars. During Khmer Rouge’s rule, it was estimated nearly two million Cambodians died of starvation, torture or execution. Two million Cambodians represented approximately 30 percent of the Cambodian population during that time. Many millions of land mines were sowed throughout the countryside, where millions of them still lie, hidden and unexploded.
Today, of Cambodia’s estimated 14 million people; nearly 42 percent live on less than US. 50 cents a day. Another 30 percent of the population is earning only marginally more than that. Infant, child, and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in Asia. Low spending on education perpetuates poverty, as children of poor families are forced to drop out of school making it harder for them to access opportunities as adults. Those who cannot afford the minimal educational fees, such as the 10,000 to 20,000 children living on the streets of Phnom Penh, do not go to school.
Two thirds of the country’s 1.6 million rural households face seasonal food shortages each year. Rice alone accounts for as much as 30 percent of household expenditures. Rural people are constantly looking for work or other income-generating activities, which are mainly temporary and poorly paid. Cambodia’s poorest people are isolated. They live in remote villages, far from basic social services and facilities. Many have to travel more than 3 miles (5 km) to reach a health clinic, and still others live more than 3 miles from the nearest road.

 Natascha gave a talk to the parents of the children in the village

Exterior of the Learning Center 

Responding to the devastation of Cambodia after years of war, CORDE has been working in Cambodia for many years with the mission to facilitate the transformation of communities through the education of individuals. It has been a challenge to bring poor Cambodians back from such a tragic upheaval of their nation and the complete disintegration of the family as an institution where love and trust died under brutal oppression, and a whole generation grew up with no understanding of what it means to have a loving family. According to CORDE, the only way is social transformation through education - to rebuild the foundation of families and community relations on which a nation can be built. The only way to build up education in the country is to help people learn to do it and sustain it themselves.