Project Hornbeam

It is six months now since we first wrote about the Hornbeam Project and much of the feasibility work is now complete. To recap for a moment, this project will set up a new children's care home in Kalimpong, Northern India and provide clean water to a local community in need.

The mould for creating success was set during the Smith Project with the building of a bespoke children's care home in Kathmandu in 2004/5. Keen to repeat this success we again plan to team with another local charity and it will be that charity that pulls together all of the local expertise and professional support required to take this project from start to finish. The Kalimpong Village Aid Association will be our chosen partner on this project. I'm pleased to say that our Regional Director Ram Thapa, will again be responsible for establishing the partnership links.

The project's key objectives are to secure a suitable property in Kalimpong, make changes if necessary and furnish/fit it to local standards. We will then appoint qualified care assistants and live-in managers and plan to take up to 10 children in the first instance. We will also supply
clean water to a nearby community in need, with the plan being to achieve all of the above by 31 st December 2007 without the need for borrowing of any kind.

This project has two main funding requirements: firstly capital funding to support the setup of the care home, and secondly regular funding to support the ongoing operations of the care home, i.e. for the health and wellbeing of the children and the salary costs of the care staff.

The good news is that at the time of writing we are well on the way to having £30,000 of capital funding, thanks mainly to Hornbeam Ivy Ltd, and enough regular funding to already support seven children. We still have some way to go with fundraising but it's a staggering result to have achieved 4 of our 7 financial milestones ahead of target.

Many of the pressures faced by children in Kathmandu are also evident in Kalimpong. There is much poverty and the mortality rate is dramatically higher than we are used to in the UK. This often means that children are forced to fend for themselves or exist as part of a very extended family. Each child in this situation is extremely vulnerable to many risks and our Hornbeam Project is being welcomed by the local community where social care is almost non-existent.

Andrew Small
Project Manager and Trustee