Orphanage

At Shreyas, we offer our guests an opportunity to take part in community service by feeding lunch to the children of a local orphanage. Guests can pick vegetables from our organic garden, chop them and help our chefs prepare a simple, healthy meal for the children of the orphanage. They take the food to the children and serve them lunch laid out traditionally on banana leaves. The children get a healthy lunch and our guests experience the joy of giving.

How the journey began

In December 2007, a guest from the UK, who had come to Shreyas for a week's stay made a special request to visit an orphanage instead of a village school. The orphanage, "KaveriVanitaSeveshrama (KVS)" at Hessaraghatta village about 7km from Shreyas was running in an old asbestos sheet-roof building and housing 24 disadvantaged women and 22 children. On returning to the UK, the guest took part in a charity walk and was able to raise £1600 for the orphanage. She asked us to check with the orphanage on how to best use this money.

We consulted the Orphanage and they initially suggested repairing the existing asbestos roof building as it was leaking at some places, however we realized that the old building would not support a new roof – the only option was to build a brand new building.Shreyasused this guest's contribution to start a corpus fund for constructing this new building on 2400 square feet land donated by a local donor.

Eventually through guest's donations (including a generous $50,000 donation from a US guest), a contribution from Shreyas and some money raised by the orphanage, the £58,000 needed to start construction was attained. The foundation was laid in February 2010 and the building was completed on the 1st December 2011. Today the children live here, in this bright and spacious home.

The new orphanage is a two-storied permanent building, with separate accommodation for boys and girls and also for the disadvantaged adults. The ground floor has accommodation for aged women, dining cum prayer hall, kitchen, storage space etc and the first floor has accommodation for about 50 children – girls and boys separately and a computer room. A 300 square feet open-air study room for the children has also been added.

The energy in this orphanage is bright and positive; the children welcome the guests with smiles and with open hearts. Sarojamma who runs the orphanage makes this possible through her devotion and love for these children. This 60 year-old lady has been serving disabled women and children for the past 40 years. Her actual name is Saroja and the word "amma" means mother.

Sarojamma comments "Shreyas is not only there for financial support. Shreyas gives me the confidence that nothing will go wrong; that the people at Shreyas will never let anything bad happen to me or the children."

Shreyas has included this orphanage visit in our agenda and is closely associated with the orphanage – providing tutors, computers and other help when needed. Our guests have been kind enough to take care of the orphanage in various ways. Many have given provisions, school bags, clothing, books, stationery, uniforms, bicycles, sports items, cooking vessels, refrigerator etc. It is always a delight to see the children's grateful joy when receiving these gifts.