FOOD AND SOLAR LAMPS PROJECT: LSM EXPANSION INTO INDIA

After 19 years of work in the Republic of Moldova in humanitarian aid, education, medical relief, and programs for impoverished children in orphanages, villages, as well as the elderly and individuals, the Little Samaritan Mission has expanded its work into India. Although we had made friends and acquaintances over the years from India, the opportunity had not be present for considering to expand LSM programs in India. In the Fall of 2009, that opportunity came. We met a contact from India who is a dedicated individual together with his family and we knew that with the first small project we would do, the gateway into India would be open for the work of LSM.
[FOOD PROJECT: CHENNAI, INDIA] Our first project was small but similar to the beginnings of our work in Moldova, it began with children. We sponsored basic food such as boiled eggs, rice cakes, and bread for 150 children for one meal a day for the duration of one month.
[SOLAR LAMPS PROJECT: CHENNAI, INDIA] In Moldova, the LSM approach to Humanitarian work has evolved over the years from first responding to the most urgent and basic needs of children such as food, coal for heating, mattresses, seeds for gardening in orphanages, medicine, clothing, and shoes to focus on education providing school supplies, educational assistance for adolescents to attend trade schools, and more recently into After-School Programs where at-risk children from impoverished villages and backgrounds of low income, neglect, and alcohol abuse can receive personal attention and tutoring for school work and a free meal. Having this as a background in Moldova for years of service and seeing the importance of not only addressing the most urgent and critical needs such as food, but also thinking ahead and providing for future individual development, LSM explored the possibility of sustainable projects in India. Although our budget is limited because we are not small organization in comparison to others, we believe that impact in a child’s life or the life of a community, one village at a time is immense and worth the effort and the investment to improve the lives of people. For this reason, the second project we did in India was providing solar lamps to hut dwellers in a village to have light during the dark hours of the evening and night. “The village is located on the left side of the Dargas road. These people migrated from one place to another because they were living near an electric transformer and a few times there were fire incidents from the transformer so the government relocated them to a remote area. They have not drinking water facility and they bring water from a distance. These solar lamps are like an emergency light source for these people.” Having a source of light will help children to continue their homework into the evening and also considering that they live in huts where snakes and scorpions can easily enter undetected, it is also a safety measure to have at least one source of light which does not require kerosene or other sources of fuel to provide lighting. We would like to do a similar project in other villages in needs of solar lamps.