The Karuneipuri Orphanage

In September Sam Minnitt described his forthcoming visit to the Karuneipuri Orphange in India, and asked for help. We did, and below are his thanks and his report on the trip.

Thank you all very much for your donations. Your kindness and generosity will bring huge positive change to the lives of the Dalit Children in the Karuneipuri Orphanage. We as a village raised over £600. These much needed funds are a significant step toward the £8000 cost to rebuild and refurbish the Girls Dormitory.

The trip to Thiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, Southern India, with fourteen fellow Waddesdon pupils was a really eye opening experience for me. The culture, with its intrinsically interwoven spirituality in architecture and daily life was fascinating. However the biggest surprise was the huge income differentials that divide both the different states of India as well as being highly apparent in each local state society. What struck me was the frequent juxtaposition of Indian life, of tinted glass and polished stone frontage buildings, looming like megaliths over the surrounding rough shack like homesteads, the co-existence of poverty with extravagance, of tethered cows and high tech equipment, created a frequent awkward situation on Thiruchirapalli's streets.

The Karuneipuri Orphanage is instrumental in catalysing change for some of the Dalit children from the village communities around Thiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India. The Orphanage provides the children with lodging and a basic education for free. The Orphanage's boys and girls sleep on woven straw mats, like beach mats, on the concrete floors of the long rough dormitory rooms. Each child has a small suitcase-style-box (slightly larger than a shoe box) containing all their worldly possessions.

Though they have a Spartan existence, with few material things, and many of the children having been through great personal suffering at the loss of their parents, each child that I met seemed to be happy in their life.

The Dalit children showed huge joy and excitement when we handed out small gifts, played games with them, or showed them attention when you congratulated them on their work. I feel the time we spent with them and the small gifts we took made a real emotional impact, it made them feel loved which is what every child should.

Key to their education at the orphanage is the teaching of English Language along with Tamil language skills, which are essential for them to access a future in India, a country still riveted by a system of Socio-Spiritual Hierarchy acting to disadvantage the Dalit community throughout their lives.