Tibetan Refugee Children, Desperately Need Our Help!

Love A Child is a foundation set up in 2003 to support children from poor areas of the world, who are refugees, abandoned, abused, exploited or orphaned. The foundation has operations in India and Nepal working with Tibetan refugee children, Myanmar (Burma) with internally displaced children in desperate need of help and Ecuador with abandoned street children, many of whom are disabled.

The foundation is a registered non profit making organisation that aims to deliver over 90% of its income directly to the children; at the same time a strict control is kept on who handles the money and how it is spent.

We are appealing today specifically for donations for the daily living costs of boys and girls at The Bon Children’s Home in India

In 2002, when John Margetson our founder first visited the Bon Children’s Home (BCH) at the Bon Po monastery, Dolanji, Northern India, there were around 150 refugee children, some as young as five years old housed in mud-walled dormitories, which during the monsoon season, were imminently liable to collapse. Most children were sharing beds, many had no shoes or socks in the winter. There were no toys, footballs or general play equipment. Food was rice followed by rice.

In spite of the harsh conditions, the tireless hard work and dedication from the staff have always provided a loving, safe and secure atmosphere for the children, as well as the only chance of education they would ever be able to have.

The Love A Child Foundation immediately began to find sponsors for the children's daily living costs, and donations for improvements to living conditions; we have donated towards new kitchens and toilets, supplied beds and play equipment. Many of the children, who our sponsors have supported since 2003, have now gone on to further education.

The Bon Children’s Home is urgently needing more sponsorship funding due to the increase in children over the last few years, who are still arriving today - numbers are at nearly 300 and resources are stretched to the limit.We have sponsors for less than half of the current children at the home.

It costs €324 euros a year, for the living costs and education of each child, and with around 150 children unsponsored, we are looking to raise at least €50,000 to help them through the next year.

Palmo, 7 years old and Tenzin, 9 years old, (photos above) have recently arrived having travelled over 1,000 km in very difficult conditions from a desperately poor village in the Kullu district of Nepal.They are safe now, they have clothes, food, schooling and healthcare, but their future depends upon the continued support of our foundation and others like us.