The Hope House

Our girls are excelling

2018-04-06T03:55:00.000-07:00

Considering our girls family dynamics and the challenges that they face on a daily basis, we celebrate each one of their successes however small they may be. Here is a story of three girls that are studying vocational education offered by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.

Meet Jayamalini, Divya and V. Lakshmi who are pursuing one year diploma in Geriatric Care.

They have not joined this course because they didn't get admission into anything but they joined because they have big dreams like you and I do and this would be the channel that would enable them to achieve them.

In December, they wrote their first semester exams and the exam results are announced. Guess what? All three of them have cleared the exams with very good marks and Divya scored overall 7.8 out of 10. We couldn't be more proud of these girls.

In June, they will complete the second semester and enter the work force immediately. That (graduation) would only be a large piece of the puzzle to attain bigger scheme of things to come. With money in hand, they have plans to support their families and study college through open university to write state public service commission exams and other competitive exams to go to the higher ground. They have already started preparing for those exams.

Congratulations girls. Keep your chin up and keep on working hard like you've been to make all your dreams come true.

Please do write your words of encouragement for them in the comments section below. Click here to support them. Join to receive our blogfeed in the top right corner of this blog and do share it on your social networking sites.

Our Valentines

2017-03-10T19:37:00.000-08:00

Hope House has a tradition where the Director of the Hope House and his wife hosts the girls that are taking 10th and 12th-grade board exams on Valentine's Day

Liza and Chinthamnai (12th graders)

The objective of this tradition is to lessen the examination stress on the girls and to help them understand that our support is not contingent upon the results but their desire to pursue education. This year we had hosted three girls (two 12th graders and one 10th grader)

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We are always looking to expand their horizon of thinking so on this Valentine's Day, we took them to a barbecue restaurant where they have 'all you can eat' meat. For all three of them, it was a newer kind of experience.

During the meal time, most often we end up laughing a lot talking about their entire stay at the Hope House. Chinthamani literally came in when she was in the first grade and now she is ready to leave after finishing 12th grade.

Towards the end, the mood becomes somber and serious as we talk about the future ahead after the 12th grade and leaving the Hope House. It is the most difficult part of the evening but they all come prepared so they know how to handle themselves.

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Both of our Valentines have made up their mind to pursue careers in healthcare. We wish them all the very best as they look to stand on their own feet from now on.

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Child’s miraculous transformation....in hours
Celebrating the ‘Child of the month’
Logo of our vocational educational institute
Year end fun at the Hope House
New partnerships of the Hope House
Our valentines

Child's miraculous transformation....in hours

2017-03-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

As you may know by now that the Hope House (THH) has been working in Katpadi railway station to rescue vulnerable children since August 2016. We average about 20+ number of children each month but one particular child's story was so touching that we thought you too might like to read it.

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list of other stories in this newsletter

One fine morning in the month of November of 2016, Mr. Ajith Selvaraj - outreach worker of the hope house (THH) called Mr. Anand - the Project Coordinator and informed about a boy (around 15 years of age) who appeared to be mentally challenged wandering on the platform area of Katpadi railway station. Mr. Anand asked Ajith to approach the boy sensitively and provide necessary care. Mr. Ajith, with the help of Vendors, approached the child but the child was aggressive and violent. He attempted to bite people. One of the vendors caught hold of the boy by his shirt collar. By then, Mr. Anand reached the spot and asked the man to free the child. Upon release, boy hardly spoke to anyone. He had a small bag in which he had some food in a small snack pack. He started to respond to Mr. Ajith and other outreach workers. He also started playing with them by following their movements. After the game, Mr.Ajith used sign language to help the boy to wash his face and legs. The boy was then taken to the Station Manager’s office for informing him about this boy being in need of care and protection.

Meanwhile, Ms. Sindhuja, Child Counsellor of THH came and interacted with the child. The child was at ease with her. She found pus discharge in his ears and he had little wounds on his legs as well. After completing all the formalities in the Government Railway Police (GRP) station, the boy was taken to the Drop in Centre (DIC) run by THH nearby. Here the child’s immediate needs were addressed. He was given a new dress and pair of footwear. As soon as the child dressed up, he was so blissful and started to hug all the staff members and wore a big smile on his face. Soon the boy was taken to a hospital and he got the treatment for his wounds and ear discharge. The doctor appreciated the work of the team and said that if the child was left untreated and left in such a situation (ear injury) for an extended period of time, it would have lead to bigger complications.

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After the medical treatment, the boy was brought back to the Drop in Centre. A photograph of the boy was sent to the Station Manager. The Station Manager was so surprised to see the boy with the new appearance that he phoned our staff to check if it was the same child that was rescued. He was pleased to see the transformation that took place in the child. Then the boy was produced before the district Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Vellore district, who placed him inturn in a government home for boys. Now the child is living happily there and free from all the health issues.

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Child’s miraculous transformation....in hours
Celebrating the ‘Child of the month’
Logo of our vocational educational institute
Year end fun at the Hope House
New partnerships of the Hope House
Our valentines

Celebrating the ‘Child of the Month’

2017-03-10T17:27:00.000-08:00

Our newest child of the month was a surprise to many of our own girls because the change was so gradual and so steady that they missed seeing their own becoming so positive and strong. We present you our newest child of the month – Lakshmi.

Lakshmi came to the Hope House at the age of nine with a history that no child should ever go through. Despite her challenges, one thing we noticed from the beginning was that she has a heart of a child – wants to play, run, eat and sleep. In our staff meetings, we had extensive discussions to explore mechanisms to support her.

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We had identified areas that needed to be stressed less and the areas that require extra emphasis. We made special provisions to address her challenges and the most important element of time for healing was provided to see her blossom from inside out. What we are witnessing in Lakshmi today is the fruit of the hard work of the staff which Lakshmi chose to make full use of it to her advantage.

Today, Lakshmi loves life for what it is. She literally found comfort in respecting life and seeing it bloom & blossom. She has become instrumental in changing the mindset of the management to make the campus into a green campus. She loves plants so much so that her sponsor gave Rs. 3000/- to help Lakshmi to do gardening. A generous supporter was so moved after reading the story of Lakshmi’s achievements to become the ‘Child of the Month’, donated 55 fruit plant saplings. We installed four bird feeders to invite more birds to our campus.

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We know now that Lakshmi has started to turn the corner and the least we could do is to encourage her so we invited an external guest to give her the certificate and Rs. 100/- as a gift. The external guest was so impressed with her citation that she gave her another Rs. 100/-.

Lakshmi, congratulations and keep up the good work. Want to read more and see Lakshmi's award photographs? Click here

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Child’s miraculous transformation....in hours
Celebrating the ‘Child of the month’
Logo of our vocational educational institute
Year end fun at the Hope House
New partnerships of the Hope House
Our valentines

Logo of our Vocational Educational Institute

2017-03-10T17:19:00.000-08:00

As you may have read that we have started a vocational educational institute called “Hope Institute of Vocational Education” or HIVE, now, in an effort to build a name recognition, we are releasing our logo.

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HIVE in English refers to a place which is busy and we hope that over a period of time, our HIVE should become a place of refuge for many through vocational education.

Hope Institute of Vocational Education (HIVE)

Various hexagons represent the diversity of courses that we offer (degree, diploma and certificate courses). Currently, we offer Bachelor of Vocational Education in Child Protection (three years), one-year diploma in Geriatric Care Takers (One Year) and a certificate course in Tailoring.

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Visit our website at http://www.indiahopehouse.org for more details.

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Child’s miraculous transformation....in hours
Celebrating the ‘Child of the month’
Logo of our vocational educational institute
Year end fun at the Hope House
New partnerships of the Hope House
Our valentines

Year end fun at the Hope House

2017-03-10T17:12:00.000-08:00

Girls get a week off for Christmas and New Year. We try to keep various fun activities to engage the girls. Here is an account of what they did in those holidays:

Picnic

We took the girls on a picnic on December 28^th for a day to the Bans – a water park, near Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh.

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We started off at 8:00 AM and reached our destination by 10:00 AM and right away got into the swimming pool. There were water themed events namely Rain Dance, Wave Pool, and Waterfalls. Our staff and students enjoyed their time in the water parks till they have no strength left.

Wrist bands for entry into the Bans water park, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh

Then we replenished ourselves with our favorite dishes at the in-house restaurant before we went to the indoor games room where our girls enjoyed playing computer and other games. We took lots of pictures before we returned to the Hope House by 6:30 PM.

It is one of our supporters who paid for the entire picnic and made this a possibility and we say thanks to him and his entire family.

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Movie night

On the 30^th of December, we took the girls to watch a movie called ‘Dangal’. It is a biopic of a gentleman from the rural background of India but chose to train his daughters to learn to play wrestling. They go on to win laurels at Commonwealth Games.

At the movies with the girls

Showing a very well made movie was an effort to instill self-confidence in the girls to believe that they too can achieve whatever they set their minds on. We believe that it is the culmination of such efforts for an extended period of time is what brings out the best in the Hope House girls. Expressions by various girls after the movie were worth listening to as they were competing with each other as to what they would be doing.

Here again, one of our supporters paid for the movie and made it a possibility and we say thanks to him and his entire family.

<<< Previous Story	Next Story >>>

Child’s miraculous transformation....in hours
Celebrating the ‘Child of the month’
Logo of our vocational educational institute
Year end fun at the Hope House
New partnerships of the Hope House
Our valentines

New partnerships of the Hope House

2017-03-10T16:52:00.000-08:00

Without the help of others – like you, Hope House would have closed its operations in the first year itself but we have survived for 12 long years in testament to the faithful giving of our individual/ institutional supporters.

We constantly strive to expand our networks of various sizes. We have had some success with a handful of organizations but never with organizations of magnitude as big as Google and Amazon dot com. Yes, you read it right that an obscure organization like the Hope House in a small town in India is partnering with multinational giants through their philanthropic initiatives.

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About Google Partnership:

Through Google’s one today program, we are able to launch a campaign to raise the needed resources for the Project YUVA. In this campaign, supporters can give as little as $1/- but what we are looking for is your advocacy role in promoting this campaign among your friends and family to support Project YUVA with $1/-. People can donate from the US, UK, Canada, and Germany etc in their own currency equivalence of one US dollar or more

About amazon.com Partnership:

Through Amazon smile program, we are able to register our sister concern – Hope House International in the US. This is how it works:

a. Log in to Smile dot Amazon dot com (www.smile.amazon.com), log into your personal account.

Click on image to zoom to read the details

b. Choose ‘Hope House International’ as your preferred non-profit to receive the generosity of Amazon dot com.

Click on the image to zoom to read the details

c. You would see many non-profits with the name “Hope House International” so kindly choose the Hope House International out of Chico, CA.

d. One you do that, you can do your shopping just like you would otherwise on amazon dot com and Amazon pays 0.5% of the purchase price (50 cents for every $100/-) as a donation to the Hope House International.

We believe in every drop so do not underestimate the power of 50 cents. $300/- of purchase would fetch adequate amount to empower 10 girls with the information pertaining to adolescence and reproductive health.

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We want to share this information with anyone that is interested in learning. We are hosting a workshop at the Hope House on a topic titled “Best Fundraising Techniques for the NGO’s”. Click here to read more.

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Child’s miraculous transformation....in hours
Celebrating the ‘Child of the month’
Logo of our vocational educational institute
Year end fun at the Hope House
New partnerships of the Hope House
Our valentines

Hope House volunteer in Germany

2016-10-13T04:25:00.001-07:00

As we have reported earlier about our partnership with DIZ, Frnakfurt, Germany which works with weltwarts program of Government of Germany, we have been hosting German volunteers for the past two years and now it got even more exciting.

Earlier this year, DIZ had informed its Indian partners (like the Hope House) to identify Indian volunteers that would be interested to serve in Germany for anywhere between 9 – 12 months.

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We were excited about this opportunity so we thought of giving it a shot. We decided to advertise on our facebook page and below is the sample of what we posted on April 11^th.

(Click on the image above to enlarge to view the details)

We had a lot of inquiries and many have applied also but none could have been a better fit than Ms. Mansi Sheth of Mumbai who was introduced to us through a mutual friend in Bangalore. I met her personally in the last week of April in Mumbai, attended a DIZ organized training workshop in Nagpur in the month of June and flown to Germany on July 4^th, 2016. She is expected to be there for about 12 months.

(Ms. Mansi Sheth)

(At an international cultural festival in Stuttgart

along with the CEO of DIZ)

It is such a coincidence that in a span of two days (July 6^th, 2016) Hope House had received a new set of volunteers from Germany (Franziska and Karina) who will be with us for the next 10 months.

(At Chennai International Airport - our

volunteers arrival on July 6th, 2016)

We requested all of them to write a small blog about their activities in their respective countries to update our Indian/ German friends and supporters. So, if you’re interested to read of what they are saying, visit this site.

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Other articles in this newsletter

1. Story of saving an elderly woman by our own Radhika

2. Hope House champions of 2016

3. Vocational Educational Institute at the Hope House

4. New project of the Hope House – Railway Children

5. Hope House volunteer in Germany

6. Rate and Review the work of the Hope House

Hope House Champions of 2016

2016-10-13T04:06:00.000-07:00

Each year, we celebrate the success of our 12^th graders and this year we have every reason to be proud of our champions. As soon as their results came in the month of May, they all had embarked on a journey that they never attempted before.

We decided to help the girls to learn the soft life skills of communication, persuasion and perseverance through crowd-funding their college education without compromising their dignity (we called it "College Education Challenge")

During our preparation, many girls were very apprehensive and shy to attempt this but the thought of an alternative of not trying made them so scared that they decided to jump in. We provided them with needed guidance and skills.

The fundraising campaign started on June 1^st and went on till July 31^st and we created a web site with the utilization of GiveIndia’s payment gateway to collect online donations. Knowing what they want to pursue in college, they needed to raise approximately Rs. 50,000/- each.

Every day, they would spend couple of hours writing to their contacts, writing facebook posts and following up. It didn’t go as well as it was expected for the entire month of June but the girls were encouraged not to give up but keep working, which they did.

Apart from making new friends, girls experienced some pretty amazing things during these two months. One mentor flew down from Mumbai to surprise and to support one of the girls and there was a family (of Georgia, USA) that visited the girls for a casual visit for the first time which didn’t last for more than two hours in total ended up closing the entire target in the last week of the campaign for all the girls.

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So many people were touched by their tenacity that a positive story telling web site called “The Better India” featured them on their web site. With the money they have raised, they’ve all have joined college now in these following places:

H. Priya	Diploma in Nursing	Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore
Radhika	Diploma in Nursing	Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore
Salomi	Diploma in Nursing	Catherine Booth Salvation Army Hospital, Nagerkoil, Tamilnadu.
Tamilselvi	Diploma in Nursing	C.S.I. Mission Hospital, Bangalore, Karnataka.

We say thank you to all and God bless.

<<<<Previous Story Next Story >>>>

Other articles in this newsletter

1. Story of saving an elderly woman by our own Radhika

2. Hope House champions of 2016

3. Vocational Educational Institute at the Hope House

4. New project of the Hope House – Railway Children

5. Hope House volunteer in Germany

6. Rate and Review the work of the Hope House

Vocational Educational Institute at the Hope House

2016-10-13T02:58:00.000-07:00

At the Hope House, when we teach our children to dream big, we mean every word of it and we try to set an example for them to learn from us.

A new day and the beginning of a new chapter at the Hope House. We are starting a Vocational Educational Institute in Vellore in partnership with the premiere institute for the social sciences in India called 'Tata Institute of Social Sciences' (TISS), Mumbai.

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The agreement to this effect was signed (Hope House was represented by Mr. Ruby Nakka - Director, and Dr. Neela Dabir - Dean of School of Vocational Education, TISS, Mumbai) on September the 8th, 2016 in Mumbai.

We are very excited for this opportunity and currently we have been approved for two verticals namely Childcare (under this vertical, we will be offering two Bachelor of Vocational Education (in short B. Voc) courses called B. Voc in Child Protection and B. Voc in Early Childhood Development) and Geriatric caretakers.

(Click on the image above to zoom to read the details)

Classes will begin from January 1^st, 2017 and those that are interested to join can start applying now.

(Click on the image above to zoom to read the details)

For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.indiahopehouse.org

<<<< Previous Story Next Story >>>>

Other articles in this newsletter

1. Story of saving an elderly woman by our own Radhika

2. Hope House champions of 2016

3. Vocational Educational Institute at the Hope House

4. New project of the Hope House – Railway Children

5. Hope House volunteer in Germany

6. Rate and Review the work of the Hope House

New project of the Hope House - 'Railway Children'

2016-08-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

In the month of April, 2016 we heard through a mutual friend that a funding organization called 'Railway Children' is looking for a partner organization to work in Katpadi railway station to rescue and rehabilitate run away children.

After learning about the nature of work being consistent with our vision and mission, we decided to apply. Towards the end of April, we were asked to make a presentation of our credentials and in the first week of May, we were told that the Hope House is one among the two shortlisted entities for due diligence. It was the most exhaustive vetting process that we had ever been through till date.

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In the first week of June, we received a confirmation from Railway Children that the Hope House has been chosen as their partner.

We couldn't believe this for two reasons. First, the nature of the competition being high and second being the areas identified for improvement at the Hope House. When we asked for the reasons for choosing, railway children candidly shared their thoughts and said that they have seen the passion of the Hope House for children and willingness to learn to improve. We couldn't be more happier for being vetted by an external organization and being told of what we always knew about our strengths. Thank you RC for your trust and we'll work hard to improve the areas that needs to be strengthened.

There will be a team of 13 people who will be working round the clock seven days a week

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Other articles in this newsletter

1. Story of saving an elderly woman by our own Radhika

2. Hope House champions of 2016

3. Vocational Educational Institute at the Hope House

4. New project of the Hope House – Railway Children

5. Hope House volunteer in Germany

6. Rate and Review the work of the Hope House

Rate & review the work of the Hope House

2016-08-12T05:09:00.000-07:00

For any organization, there's nothing more important than to hear from their stakeholders of their opinion of the organization. We too want to take this seriously to know what you think of us. Here is how you can tell us:

Click on this link and your browser would open to show you this picture below

Click on the image to see the enlarged view

On the left panel, you should see the Hope House building image and on the right panel, you should see the location of the Hope House. Just below the Hope House building image, click on 'review' (where the arrow on the image is showing) and you'll be taken to a dialogue box to help you rate and review the work of the Hope House.

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Thank you in advance for taking time to rate and review our work.

<<<< Previous Story Next Story >>>>

Other articles in this newsletter

1. Story of saving an elderly woman by our own Radhika

2. Hope House champions of 2016

3. Vocational Educational Institute at the Hope House

4. New project of the Hope House – Railway Children

5. Hope House volunteer in Germany

6. Rate and Review the work of the Hope House

Story of Saving an elderly woman by our own Radhika

2016-08-12T04:06:00.001-07:00

It was 5:30 PM on April 5th and I was attending a short phone call and in that duration I had five missed calls from the same number. It is one of our 12th graders – Radhika (we fondly call her Rads) who finished her exams on April 1st and had gone home for a short vacation to be with her mother. I returned the call only to find myself in a bigger mess…….that’s what I thought at least.

With exasperating voice, Rads started describing about an elderly woman in nightgown, head shaven, is in her village not knowing where she is from but appears to have wandered off. In no time, it was apparent to both of us that she has memory problems. Rads was so moved by this elderly woman’s plight, she gave her a place to sit and didn’t allow her to go any further.

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Being about 20 KM away from her, helplessly I gave her a phone number to call but that other person was unavailable till the next day so he advised Rads to keep the elderly woman in her house till the next day. Rads mother and the entire community threw a fit at that suggestion and started mocking this young lady.

Darkness set in and she wouldn’t stop calling me. Since the elderly woman appears to be having memory loss, I called the Mental Health Center of Christian Medical College but they didn’t have any of their patients missing. I googled and found the number of the nearby state hospital (Adukkamparai Government Medical College) to inquire if any of their patients wandered off. Lady on the other end wouldn’t let me go but called a medical doctor who asked me for all the details which fits the elderly woman they have been looking for. Rads was ecstatic. Doctor requested that she be brought to the emergency room but when I asked Rads, she was ready to take her but there are no automobiles in her village to take her.

Sitting helplessly with the frail elderly woman who literally seems to have walked about 10 KM from 5:00 AM, all that Rads heard was her community’s indifference and rebuke. Then, all of a sudden there was this light. A car drove in with a glaring light and asking for Rads. It was that elderly woman’s family which came to take her. Family left the village with profound thankfulness for what Rads had done. Doctor also called and thanked her and Rads rightly made him to talk to her own mother. The doctor explained to her about how proud she should be of her daughter.

For one last time when she called me that evening, her voice was choking. Not from sadness but with tears of joy. Rads herself didn’t have an easy childhood before she joined the Hope House four years ago. I thought for a minute as to what possibly could have made her this gentle and caring? I couldn’t think of anything other than the environment at the Hope House – Stretch the rules to be right than to follow the book to be righteous.

Rads, my hats off to you girl tonight. You’re my hero. You made the right choice in choosing healthcare as a career.

Now, Rads got admission to India’s best nursing college called “Christian Medical College” to become a nurse and she will join the college on August 16^th, 2016. Appreciate Rads at radhika20140619@gmail.com

<<<< Previous Story Next Story >>>>

Other articles in this newsletter

1. Story of saving an elderly woman by our own Radhika

2. Hope House champions of 2016

3. Vocational Educational Institute at the Hope House

4. New project of the Hope House – Railway Children

5. Hope House volunteer in Germany

6. Rate and Review the work of the Hope House

Story of Saving an elderly woman by our own Radhika

2016-08-12T04:06:00.000-07:00

Darkness set in and she wouldn’t stop calling me. Since the elderly woman appears to be having memory loss, I called the Mental Health Center of Christian Medical College but they didn’t have any of their patients missing. I googled and found the number of the nearby state hospital (Adukkamparai Government Medical College) to inquire if any of their patients wandered off. Lady on the other end wouldn’t let me go but called a medical doctor who asked me for all the details which fits the elderly woman they have been looking for. Rads was ecstatic. Doctor requested that she be brought to the emergency room but when I asked Rads she was ready to take her but there are no automobiles in her village to take her.

Rads, my hats off to you girl tonight. You’re my hero. You made the right choice in choosing healthcare as a career.

Valentine's Day at the Hope House (not what you're thinking)

2016-03-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

For the past four years, we have been observing and celebrating 'Valentine's Day' at the Hope House but not in the same way the world around us does it. We do it on the same premise (expression of love) but in a different style and for a different purpose.

In India, 10th and 12th grade exams are crucial one's and that students goes through tremendous amount of stress. There are research studies indicating that this stress drives some vulnerable students to resort to extreme measures. As many of our students do come from backgrounds where the laying of early academic foundation was not so strong, we take a preemptive measure to talk about it openly and reassure them of our support irrespective of their results.

So the Hope House Director and his wife takes the 10th and 12th graders out to a restaurant for special treat. Name of the restaurant is kept under the wraps to keep the excitement alive till the last minute.

This year, we had eight girls totally and we chose a restaurant and one of our German volunteer's family wanted to sponsor the restaurant expense for the girls. We took them to GRT Sameera in Vellore where they have buffet (Western/ Indian/ Vegetarian and Non-Vegetarian). Just the ambiance took them by surprise and to see variety of foods served was unbelievable. They tried all kinds of foods to their hearts desire especially different kinds of desserts.

Then, our director addressed them all about the exams. They were reassured of Hope House's support irrespective of their results and helped them to understand about the exams and what they are supposed to mean to de-stress them. Girls looked happy at the end of the day with tummy full of food and heart full of assurances to succeed.

We want to say a big thank you to the Baum family of Germany who sponsored the dinner for the girls. Want to support our girls future? Click here. Want to write a comment, do so below.

Read the next story >>>>

Other stories of the newsletter

Child of the month

Learning English Hope House way
A program to learn empathy & tolerance

Picnic @Yelagiri Hills

Children’s Profiles

Join in "I am YUVA" Campaign

Valentine’s Day

Resource to join in "I am YUVA" campaign

2016-03-22T02:33:00.000-07:00

'Project YUVA' - Project for the Youngsters to Understand and Verbalize Adolescents, is our newest program and under this program we want to reach out to as many youngsters as we possibly can to help them to learn about the reproductive health education.

When we say "we want to reach out", our objective is not to involve ourselves directly as it is impossible to do it but empower other youngsters with tools and resources to reach out and the cycle goes on.

It is a program developed out of our own students distress and how she handled it. She taught us that peer education is the best model to reach out to the adolescent age group individuals.

Now, we brought out our first resource that is used by our own student to educate her own classmates. We compiled it into a spiral bound book format and it is to be used by anyone that is desiring to reach out to more number of youngsters.

If this interests you, write to us at this following email address and we'll get in touch with you.

Email: info@indiahopehouse.org

Use this resource to learn all about reproductive health and then use the same resource to teach to 50 or more adolescents in your own neighborhood. Once you send us the grid sheet saying that you have completed the teaching, we'll verify and send you a very colorful and useful "I am YUVA" certificate that you can use for your future.

Get involved to protect yourself and also to protect those that are around you today. You like this story and want to support our girls today? Click here.

Read the next story >>>>

Other stories of the newsletter
Child of the month

Learning English Hope House way
A program to learn about empathy & tolerance

Picnic @Yelagiri Hills

Children’s Profiles

Join in “I am YUVA” campaign

Valentine’s Day

Hope House picnic

2016-03-22T02:24:00.000-07:00

Every year, Hope House girls go on picnics twice a year (at the beginning of the academic year and at the end). These are to help the girls to relax and to learn something new in an informal way. Where do you think we went this year? Can you guess?

We went to a nearby (about 90 KM) hill station called "Yelagiri Hills" which is 1100 meters above the sea level. We went by our own van and the group consisted of 23 children, 5 staff members and ofcourse our German volunteers. Due to the high attitude, temperatures were just right and girls had a good time.

(Bus ride to the Yelagiri Hills)

Shalom Foundation Retreat Center

Dormitories that we used

We went on a Saturday the 20th of February and returned on Sunday the 21st of February. We stayed at 'Shalom Foundation Retreat Center' which is a beautiful facility with comfortable amenities. They have an excellent security with compound wall and lots of tress with a beautiful chapel located right in the middle.

We went on a boat ride, playing in the nature park, trekking in the aura valley and eating and eating and more eating. Above all, we had some quiet time in the Chapel.

(Boating in Yelagiri Lake)

(Trekking in the Aura Valley)

(The whole gang)

This picnic brought our official activities for the year to an end and the girls will spend all their energies on the upcoming exams. Hopefully our first activity of the next academic year (June to April) would be a picnic again to signify the beginning.

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A new program at the Hope House to learn empathy and tolerance

2016-03-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

Brain researchers say that one of the most important human emotions is 'empathy' and also this can be nurtured. We have been trying to promote empathy among our girls in various ways but never did we have a dedicated program for this. Not anymore...

On January 26th, we started a program called 'Adopt a Sister'. We have identified four youngest girls who needs help with their activities of daily living everyday and then we have asked for volunteers to help these girls. Totally we had 12 older girls volunteered so we split them all up into three groups of four each. Each volunteer takes care of one younger girl for two weeks and then they rotate. So each group works on these young one once in six weeks.

When it started, it was all fun and excitement. But in the first week itself, one of the 12th grader wanted to drop out because of the difficulties of caring for her adopted sister but she was counselled about staying the course and at the end of the two weeks, when they were about to change the groups, she shared a touching testimony about what she had learned from her adopted sister. She said "I would get angry at her adamant behavior and scold her but she never stops coming to me with a big smile in no time".

As a token of appreciation for participating in this program, we give them a 'Certificate of Participation' like below

(Click on the image above to read the details)

So what do these older sisters do to the younger ones anyway? Literally everything like their own biological sister. Washing, feeding, bathing, playing, putting them to sleep and so much more.

Now, all our girl volunteers have completed first rotation and they are in their second one. They have reached consensus not to repeat the same little girl for a change and it looks like it is doing wonders in the outlook of our adolescent girls who are caring for the younger ones.

They enjoy participating in it without even knowing that they are being transformed to become better individuals for the future.

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How we teach English to the Hope House girls.....

2016-03-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

Almost all of our girls when they join the Hope House, their understanding and knowledge of English is next to nil. We know that we cannot allow them to continue to grow up with the same level of understanding because English is a subject in school and of course as we know it, it is a global language and it wouldn't be easy if they have to succeed without English.

Knowing their limitation is one thing and having a strategy to help them to overcome is another thing. We do it the Hope House style.....fun way......more activity based with no consequences for failing and knowing fully well that they are in the same boat as others who have the same competencies or less if not more.

First, we lay the foundation using Phonics (we use hooked on phonics as you see in the image below)

(click on the image above to enlarge)

and then we introduce them to different things like little pictorial story books, Hollywood cartoon movies, English newspapers, email writing, participating in little newspaper competitions, and of course speaking with our residential German volunteers in English everyday. This goes on for the entire length of their stay in the Hope House.

If you're wondering about measuring of their learning, we have developed our own little tool that you see below:

(Click on the image above to enlarge)

What we do is this: Randomly we pick a newspaper article and make the student to read/ type it while we time for speed and measure for their errors (in reading and typing). We save this clipping on the child's name to use it for the future tests (child will not have access to this clipping to practice it) while these initial tests are being used as baseline.

As you can see from the above picture that Radhika - a 12th grader who was referred to the Hope House (when she was in 9th grade) by a Social Worker who couldn't bear to see the abject poverty that Radhika was living in and being engaged in child labor. At admission, her English depth and understanding was literally non-existent but today it is remarkable. She can write long emails with very few errors and can converse in English with relative ease. Because of this, her confidence has soared to touch the skies and she wants to become a nurse now - hands that were exploited for commercial purposes when she was a little girl are about to become hands that would save lives.

We take great pride in her transformation that we were able to play a small role in shaping this young lady's future but perhaps a generation may have been touched. It is this possibility that motivates us to reach out to more number of children like Radhika.

Come June, Radhika will move on to college to pursue nursing and we need your help. We are building a corpus fund to reach out to most deserving students to study job oriented professional courses so that they can get jobs immediately to support themselves and their families. Would you like Radhika with your gift of Rs. 250/-? Click here to make donation on GiveIndia site.

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'Child of the Month' - Tamilselvi

2016-03-22T01:51:00.001-07:00

Each month, we celebrate our girls good deeds and transformation by giving them a positive reinforcement through an award that we call it 'Child of the Month'. For the month of January, we felt a 12th grader truly deserves this award and her name is Tamilselvi.

Tamil joined the Hope House due to difficult family dynamics when she was in 7th grade. She has an older brother and her mom was not keeping well at that time. According to Tamil, she never went to school regularly so for obvious reasons, her academic foundation was shallow.

After joining the Hope House, she learned the nuances of the Hope House culture where there are no consequences for attempting to do activities failing. She always wanted to learn English and her English was no different from the other girls so she would sit for the daily English spelling tests among the girls that take three letter words tests (there are girls that would take six letter words tests also). It was so striking to note that she had no idea of phonics so she used to struggle a lot even with the three letter words.

Gradually we introduced her to phonics which she was able pick up quickly. By the time she reached 10th grade, her English has improved significantly and passed 10th grade board exams with good marks. That set the ball rolling for Tamil to believe that she can do anything if only she puts her mind to it.

Those that clear 10th Board exams are enrolled in our in-house 'Leadership Development Program' (or LDP) where our girls are exposed to refine communication skills, Computer skills, Organizational Skills and Typing skills. Under each of these modules, girls are required to undertake different sets of activities to refine themselves to become future leaders. Most of the activities are fun based. We believe that it is in these two years, Tamil had transformed. One line emails have become one page, became internet savvy and chirpier than ever.

In all this, she has become kinder and gentler. In our recently introduced 'Adopt a Sister' program, she was the first one to volunteer and when the lots were drawn, she was assigned to a special needs child that needs more care than other children. She gladly accepted the responsibility to learn about empathy, tolerance and patience. Tamil would go out of her way to keep her adopted sister clean and help her in every possible way to keep her cheered up.

As part of LDP, she was introduced to reading newspapers (English and Tamil) and having a mentor. Her mentor is a septuagenarian retired plastic surgeon in the US. Every little achievement, she communicates with him and he in turn corrects her English and encourages her to learn more. She participates in daily competitions and solves Sudoku puzzles. She was featured in the school edition of the Hindu newspaper recently for participating and winning a small competition.

(Click on the image to enlarge the image)

Tamilselvi will move on to college to pursue her career in healthcare in June, 2016 and we feel that she has done exceedingly well to prepare for this stage of her life. She not only became a studious girl in studies but a girl with strong life skills to handle herself well. No doubt she deserves to be the 'Child of the Month' of the Hope House.

(Click on the image to enlarge the image)

We will miss her but we know that the spirit of the Hope House (not to be afraid to attempt newer things and face the challenges as they come) will be carried on in her. We couldn't ask for more from her. Good Luck Tamil and God Bless.

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Girls go out of their way to save their pet dog's eye

2016-03-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

In 2009, girls received a puppy as a Christmas gift from one of the Board of Trustees of the Hope House. Girls named her 'candy'. That Christmas, girls posed for Christmas photos with Candy. They really started to take care of Candy like one of their own but something went wrong.....I mean terribly wrong.

Candy began to grow up and became a meanie. She would chase every kid on the street and the bike riders that people began complaining including threats to take us to the police station. Girls couldn't bear the embarrassment. They wanted to have nothing to do with Candy all of a sudden.

We all of us made a collective decision to abandon Candy. We took her several kilometers away from the Hope House and dropped her off. We had a big sigh of relief which lasted for a month. Candy appeared at our door as skin and bone. We still didn't want this dog so tried again and again and again totally for five times. Each time when she came back, she had a look of "where have yoll been" while we went "Oh noooo....."

On the day when girls were shifting to their new and permanent premises in August of 2013, they loaded everything and boarded their mini-bus only to find Candy in there. They unanimously decided to take Candy with them. At their new location, Candy had no one around to threaten so girls also found a companion in her and they accepted her.

Every time girls get out of the Hope House, she goes before them like a pilot. She would attend church service with them and there were incidences of public bus drivers stopping the bus to ask our girls to get Candy out. Everything looked like a happy family until last Thursday when Candy went with our girls to collect vegetables where another big dog attacked Candy.

Our girls reached back to the Hope House but Candy didn't. So, after a while they went in search of her but they returned empty handed as it was dark. Next day morning, Candy came back limping and with a horrible eye injury - almost gouged out.

Girls didn't know how to help as we live in the countryside. They ran to the neighbor who has a dog for help and called the Vet. He came and gave shots and advised that the eye needs to be operated on. Unfortunately, girls were made to go from pillar to post. At one state vet clinic, by the time they reached it was late and the doctor was about to leave so they had to beg him to do the needful. By the time, they were able to get the surgical help for Candy, it was Sunday morning.

Vet attending to Candy

After Candy's eye was operated on

Happily recovering Candy

Our girls have been more than helpful to Candy who has protected them all for all these years at no cost. They carried her in an auto-rickshaw spending their own little pocket money, giving her bath and taking food to where Candy would rest etc.

Looking at all this, I began to wonder as to what has changed in the girls to give so much of care to Candy? I strongly believe that the understanding of faithfulness of Candy made them realize how fortunate they are to have been protected by a canine like her. They feel bad now to have thought like the way they did to abandon her few years ago.

Candy is recovering and he needs to go for three more follow up visits to the Vet's clinic. Thanks to our girls who have shown enormous empathy and we couldn't be more proud.

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Little social activists of the Hope House

2016-03-03T22:21:00.005-08:00

Couple of months ago when one of our German volunteers requested that her Social Worker friend of her be allowed to come to do an internship at the Hope House, collectively we have agreed for Ms. Greta to come and then decided for her to develop each child's profiles as her assignment.
Most of our children come from very poor and marginalized communities where they do not have any kind of memories (such as photographs) so we thought this would be an ideal asset for them to carry from the Hope House when they leave.

For the past one month, Greta and Jule (our volunteer) worked tirelessly to develop this booklet containing each child's profile and released it yesterday with every child getting a copy of their own. I was surprised to see a question in that booklet asking "what is your wish for India". What is more surprising for me was the answers some of our girls gave. They have big ideas and I mean very big ideas and they want to be part of those ideas.

Here are just a few thoughts that we found in them are very interesting.

______________________________________________________________________

With this kind of mindset, we know now that our girls are growing up with the right values and we couldn't be more proud of them. If you liked our girls thoughts, support them by writing your thoughts in comments section below. If you like to support them for their higher education by contributing towards the corpus fund, kindly do make a donation at this link

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Join in “I am YUVA” campaign

Valentine’s Day

Voulunteer's Voice - Laura Stoerzer - (Working with the girls together in groups)

2015-09-23T21:11:00.001-07:00

To organize our time and skills better, we split the girls into three groups with seven children for each volunteer. This helps us because now we can give individual attention apart from spending concentrated efforts on their weaker areas.

We had a chat with the girls individually to get to know them first. Also, we sat together in our respective groups to know each other’s expectations.

Since the girls have a very long day at school, we decided to do some daily outdoor games and sports after school with all the groups together. We play different kinds of games, go jogging and also do some stretching or showing them some self-protection skills. Girls looked like they are having lot of fun during these physical activities.

Before and after dinner, we spend time with few girls to teach English and Computer skills. Each girl can choose a day and we spend that day exclusively for that child. We are trying to figure out their baseline in these areas so that we can measure their progress.

Every Saturday, we try to do some environmental education with the girls to help them understand how important it is to protect it. This includes treatment of animals, not wasting water, and what they ought to do with trash.

On Saturday evenings, we use for group feedback where we all sit together and talk. Girls can tell us how the week went for them with us so that we can build a working relationship with them. We are given specific goals in each area for us to reach for individual children.

Learning English is not a big deal to our girls at the Hope House

2015-09-10T19:57:00.002-07:00

Radhika – a 12^th grader now, was referred to us by the local hospital’s Social Worker because she couldn’t bear to see the plight of her struggles. She was working to support the family with a sickly mother when she was supposed to be going to school.

When she was admitted to the Hope House in 9^th grade in 2012, she had no clue about the concept of English except for alphabets. But today, she is a bubbly young lady with fair fluency in English conversations, reading, and typing. How she managed to pull that off is the signature of Hope House’s initiative called “Leadership Development Program” (LDP).

Click on the image to enlarge to see the details

As soon a child is admitted to the Hope House, we start them on phonics. Yes, Radhika was given phonics training when she was in 9^th grade and encourage them to read whatever they can lay their hands on, be it story books, or titles on the buses or billboards etc. Once they finish 10^th grade successfully, they are enrolled in LDP where learning English is one of the modules they have to complete.

We set their baselines for measuring future progress by making them to read/ type a particular newspaper clipping by measuring the speed and accuracy. That same clipping is saved for the future and the test is repeated every year. During the year, they are made to read the daily English newspapers, write emails, read story books, practice touch screen typing (online) and of course to show them child friendly English movies

In July of this year, when we re-tested Radhika, she showed jaw dropping improvement in all the areas of English.

Reading – speed has improved by 33% and errors have come down by 40%

Typing – Speed has improved by 82% but errors have gone up by 25%

Now that we have a group of German volunteers staying with them for the next nine months, we only expect Radhika and many others like her to improve their conversational English significantly. Want to help girls like Radhika at the Hope House? Click here to express your generosity.

"Voice of Hope" - Newsletter of the Hope House (April, 2015)

2015-05-01T03:15:00.001-07:00

Here is the latest edition of our newsletter - "Voice of Hope". Use the navigational tools at the bottom to enlarge the newsletter to suit your viewing requirements. We hope you would like it as much as we enjoyed compiling it.

"Voice of Hope" - Newsletter of the Hope House