Story by Zahra Motavasel
2 flights, 8 hours of a bumpy road journey and we arrived in Tening, the village where ‘House of Hope’ was built...🏡
🌱EWB Nagaland Orphanage Project 2018🌱
House of Hope also called Agun Ki (the local dialect) is an orphanage in Tening, Nagaland (NE India) in between mountains, 4000ft above sea level, which is run by a local family currently looking after 5 orphans⛰
The large number of orphans in the area, due to parents dying from lack of health care, inability to look after their children because of extreme poverty called for a need for a safe and loving home to look after these children.
So we (EWB Malaysia) teamed up with EWB UK, Afri-link (NGO based in UK) and NERUDA (NGO based in Nagaland) to extend Agun Ki to take in 8 more orphans, giving them an opportunity to become part of the Agun Ki family 👨👩👦👦
When we arrived in Tening, we realized this was no ordinary experience. The stories of how these children became orphans was not far from what you see in Indian movies! 🎞
The hardship of their lives, lack of parents and proper care had turned them into such loving, hard working and a mature for their age kind of children!
Being looked after by Rentta and his family, the local family looking after Agun Ki was providing them for exactly what they needed; healthcare, education and most importantly a loving and caring home💞
We spent more than 2 weeks on construction of the extension of the orphanage, visited the local villages and spoke to the villagers to find out about their daily struggles; lack of water, electricity, healthcare etc. ⛏💧💡
Once the construction is completed, 8 more orphans will be taken by Agun Ki. However this will not be the end the battles for Agun Ki, Tening and the local villages!
The running cost of the orphanage; food, healthcare, education, clothing and etc. will remain a constraint to keep the quality of good care at Agun Ki💊💉📚🛌
To help with this we will be setting up a website to fundraise and continue our support for Agun Ki, Tening and the local villages🤝