CHILDREN'S HOMES
Children’s Homes – We have two homes, Bethel House for boys and Bethany Home for girls. The children are either orphans, from single parent families or from families that are so poor they can no longer care for their child.
Poverty in India affects children the most, making them vulnerable to sickness, disease, abuse of some form and they have no positive future prospects, due to lack of education and job opportunities.
Our purpose-built facility provides a loving, caring family environment for up to 40 boys and 40 girls. Many that come to us have been assessed as vulnerable to abuse or abduction by child traffickers who operate prolifically in the state of West Bengal.
In 2018 Save the Children reported that at least 8,205 children were abducted by human traffickers in West Bengal alone. All were sold into the sex trade or forced to work in sweat shops around India. Human traffickers are a very real threat, particularly to vulnerable children living in rural areas where gangs operate unchecked, looking to make a quick profit.
Our boys and girls attend local schools so that they can experience mixing with other children and join in with extra curriculum activities like sports and school events. But they also receive extra tuition 5 days a week from our in-house teaching staff. Boys and girls can stay with us until they graduate at class 12 (usually 18 years old). We then help them into further education, training, employment or relocate them back to their village if they chose to and if they have family to return to.
