Child Impact International
is an organization giving hope.
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Previously called Asian Aid,
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Child Impact
International is an organization
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fostering
permanent positive change
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in the lives of
disadvantaged children
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and their communities.
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Child Impact is
committed to making a difference
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in the lives of children
and those who are in need,
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serving communities in India,
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Nepal, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, Myanmar,
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and will soon
expand to other countries.
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For the last 50 years,
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Child Impact has invested
in the futures of people,
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and their investment
has proven infinite returns,
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driven by the dedication
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to helping those
who have the least.
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Child Impact is an organization
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focused on the
welfare of children,
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implementing
diverse development projects
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and sponsoring
thousands of children.
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Their outreach spans
from child rescue operations
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to providing an
education for orphans, deaf,
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and the blind children
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giving them a
sense of place, a home.
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But above all, Child Impact
is an organization giving hope,
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giving hope to children,
giving hope to communities,
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giving hope to the
ones who need it the most.
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This is Hope in Motion.
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Our television
series Hope in Motion
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has been a big success,
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and we want to
continue to share with you
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some of the field stories
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that we have
filmed over the years.
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So just from time to time
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it may refer to Asian Aid
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as we reflect on
these great stories
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as we share them with you.
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With a population
of nearly 1.3 billion
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and a vast
majority of those people
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living off of
less than $2 a day,
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many families in
India struggle to survive.
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The joy of having a baby
can be tainted by the question
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of how they would provide
the basics of food and shelter
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needed for their survival.
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So if a parent loses
their job or passes away,
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children are abandoned
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as the surviving
parent or family members
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cannot cope emotionally
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and financially with the burden.
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It is estimated there
are 31 million orphans
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or abandoned children
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struggling to survive in India.
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Sai Eshwari is a
seven-year-old girl
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studying in the first grade
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at the
Seventh-day Adventist school
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in the outskirts of
Hyderabad in South India.
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Her home is just a few
feet away from her classroom.
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This is Elim Home, an orphanage
established by the church
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and supported by
Child Impact International.
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Although, not an orphan,
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circumstances forced her
to be brought to Elim Home.
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Malathi, the director and
house mother of Elim Home,
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took Sai Eshwari in
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after a chance
meeting with her aunt
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after church on the Sabbath day.
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One day, when I went to church,
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one of our church
members by the name Ruthamma,
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she asked me that
she want to talk with me,
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and she said that
she needs some help.
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I told her she can come any time
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she wishes to meet me.
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Then the next day, Sunday,
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she came along with
Madhu and her daughter.
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Madhu was married
when she was just 16.
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Although such
practices are unlawful,
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customs and social traditions
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dictate life in rural
India, especially Mangapur.
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After two
months of her marriage,
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her husband and his parents
sent her home to get dowry.
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Madhu's parents were
unable to pay their demands,
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and when her husband's family
found out she was pregnant,
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they refused to take her back.
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The following year,
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Madhu gave
birth to her daughter,
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Sai Eshwari.
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Soon her situation at
home began to get worse.
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Her mother and her brother
forced her to worship idols
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and began to resent
her presence at home.
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She was becoming a
financial burden to them
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and decided to take
matters in their own hands.
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Without any reason,
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my brother and my mother
asked me to leave the house.
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They told me we
had fed you enough
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and told me I
was a burden on them.
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When I refused
to leave the house,
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my brother hit me on my arm,
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and my mother
punched me on my face.
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Fearing her daughter's
safety and that of her own,
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Madhu came to Hyderabad
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to seek refuge
at her aunt's place.
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After I heard Madhu's story
and her pathetic condition,
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I decided to take
Sai Eshwari inside
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because though it is an home
for taking desperate children
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and mostly the orphan children,
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but still I took a decision
that I should take Sai Eshwari
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because being a female,
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I felt that I
should help another female,
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small girl who is in
need, and I also heard
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that she is getting
only one meal a day,
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and I thought
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that she should be in this home.
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And it's not just
people who are orphans
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whose parents are dead,
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you might have people who might
have one parent or two parents,
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but then, they just
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do not earn enough
money to support a family,
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so they really
abandon kids anyhow.
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So extreme poverty
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also puts kids into the bracket
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that need help and
need help desperately
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and need help now,
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not in 10 years time because
they won't survive 10 years,
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so that's what orphanages do,
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they get the
children who really need help
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and don't have
anyone to help them.
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I guess most often we
think that orphanage means
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they have no parents,
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but in the case of some,
there may be a single parent,
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but the driving
force can be poverty.
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The reality is
that the single parent,
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perhaps like Madhu,
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simply can't cope
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because of their circumstances
that trapped in poverty.
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And so the orphanage
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gives them hope for their child,
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give something that
they could never deliver
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for their child and
that makes a huge difference.
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Madhu with the help of her aunt,
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Ruthamma, found a
job at a local hospital,
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cleaning the hospital floor
and doing other menial jobs.
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She told us she earns
80 to 100 rupees a day,
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less than $2,
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hardly enough to
provide her three meals a day.
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Her hardship was revealed to us
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when we went to
see where she lived.
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One can only imagine a situation
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where Madhu had to
take care of her daughter,
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Sai Eshwari, in a place
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where there's hardly a
proper roof over the head,
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a vulnerable place for
a vulnerable young woman.
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In spite of all her
hardship and vulnerability,
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Madhu considers
herself fortunate
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because her daughter now
has a safe place to grow up.
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If I would not
have taken the decision,
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the mother would have
recovered from her health,
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then afterwards, she
would have taken this girl
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also as a child labor
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here and there to
some houses as a labor
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because we have taken her
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and Sai Eshwari
is very fortunate
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and she's a very bright girl,
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and she always
stands first in the class,
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and she has improved a lot.
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I'm thankful to God
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for the help my
daughter is receiving right now.
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All this is because I
refused to worship idols
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and I worship the true God.
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God has been very
gracious to me and my daughter.
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I'm thankful to the
sponsors who are supporting her.
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Because of the timely
intervention of Malathi,
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Sai Eshwari can now grow up
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in a safe and
loving home at Elim
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and Child Impact sponsorship
is giving children like Sai
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Eshwari and the 137
other children at Elim Home
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the financial support to
grow up in this environment.
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This support is not
just getting children
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out of desperate situations,
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but it is also having a
wider impact in the community.
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Padma works as a
cook at Elim Home.
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Her children,
Priyanjali and Akash, live here
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and go to school next
door just like Sai Eshwari.
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Her eldest son is also sponsored
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by Child Impact
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and goes to an Adventist
boarding school in Nuzvid,
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a few hours from Hyderabad.
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Not long ago, Padma
lived a content life
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in her native
town with her family
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until a tragic incident
brought her crushing down.
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My husband found a job in
the Gulf as a daily laborer,
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and after two years,
he was coming back home.
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We were all waiting for him.
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On the way back
from the airport,
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he met with an accident.
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Padma's husband
died on the spot,
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and his death not only brought
the tag of being called a widow
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but it also brought
her financial difficulties.
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All her relatives and
neighbors who cared for her,
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after her husband's death
slowly began to desert her.
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She doesn't blame them.
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"How can they help me
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and my three
children forever," she asks.
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Although her
three children receive
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Child Impact
sponsorship for their tuition,
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she was finding it hard
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to take care of
their basic needs
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such as a decent meal a day.
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There were three kids,
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and she has no
one to raise the kids.
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She is all alone.
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She was broken
because her husband died
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in a car accident.
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And immediately, we thought
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maybe Asian
should definitely pick...
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Should come
forward to help such,
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you know, family
was in desperately need
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of educating the children.
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Then that's how
I got to meet her
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and got to know more about her,
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you know, her family
story, how her husband died,
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and what she's
looking for the kids.
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After he heard Padma's story,
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Ravi, field
officer for Child Impact
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brought her to Elim Home
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and her three
children were taken
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into the
orphanage and given shelter.
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Fortunately, for Padma,
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she found a job as
a cook in the kitchen.
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In Indian setup,
if the husband dies,
00:10:51.18\00:10:53.52
a female has to
face a lot of problems,
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especially
educating her children
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and providing them meals
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and provide all
their needs is very hard.
00:11:00.72\00:11:04.19
If we would not
have given her job,
00:11:04.23\00:11:07.46
she would have
gone out for fields
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or work somewhere
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or sometime she would have sent
her eldest son for work also.
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And she might not
have any peace of mind,
00:11:15.60\00:11:19.04
and she might also face
00:11:19.07\00:11:20.44
so many problems in the society.
00:11:20.48\00:11:23.68
Yes, we are a
child-focused organization,
00:11:23.71\00:11:26.92
but because we're in the field,
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because we're talking to people,
00:11:28.55\00:11:31.09
we do help the wider community.
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For instance, we gave the widow
hope by working in the kitchen.
00:11:34.09\00:11:38.46
We also have given
00:11:38.49\00:11:40.16
some of our previous orphanage
children responsibilities,
00:11:40.20\00:11:44.77
and they're now field workers.
00:11:44.80\00:11:46.67
So we're making a difference
in the wider community.
00:11:46.70\00:11:50.04
When you travel across India,
00:11:53.21\00:11:54.98
it becomes more evident
that there are so many people
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including lay
members of our church
00:11:57.75\00:11:59.71
struggling to send
their children to school.
00:11:59.75\00:12:02.95
Many of our members not
able to send their children
00:12:02.98\00:12:05.62
to the Christian schools,
00:12:05.65\00:12:07.12
and these member children
are coming into our schools
00:12:07.16\00:12:10.06
because of Asian Aid,
00:12:10.09\00:12:11.43
they are being
supported and they're trained.
00:12:11.46\00:12:13.23
Tomorrow, definitely,
00:12:13.26\00:12:14.60
they are our hope and
workers for the church.
00:12:14.63\00:12:17.07
I'm really thankful to
the philanthropic people
00:12:17.10\00:12:19.53
who are supporting
these children to be educated
00:12:19.57\00:12:21.74
and get Christian education.
00:12:21.77\00:12:23.10
I'm very thankful for
Elim Home and the sponsors.
00:12:28.48\00:12:32.51
I'm also grateful to Mr. Ravi
who introduced me to Elim Home.
00:12:32.55\00:12:37.49
I'm an Adventist
but before coming here,
00:12:37.52\00:12:40.62
I didn't know that church
had organizations like this
00:12:40.66\00:12:43.73
that helps children
in desperate situations.
00:12:43.76\00:12:47.13
I know about Asian Aid,
00:12:47.16\00:12:49.16
but I didn't know
they supported orphanages.
00:12:49.20\00:12:52.23
God has opened the
doors for me and my children.
00:12:52.27\00:12:55.50
There are so many other widows
like me who are suffering.
00:12:55.54\00:12:59.07
I remember all of
them in my prayers
00:12:59.11\00:13:01.31
because I feel
I'm very fortunate.
00:13:01.34\00:13:05.05
Today, orphanages like Elim Home
00:13:05.08\00:13:07.25
are not only
fulfilling its mission
00:13:07.28\00:13:08.98
to reach out to orphan children,
00:13:09.02\00:13:10.85
but as we found out today
00:13:10.89\00:13:12.42
and thanks to Child
Impact International,
00:13:12.45\00:13:14.82
it is also reaching out
to children from impoverished
00:13:14.86\00:13:17.69
and unfortunate backgrounds
by providing them a safe place
00:13:17.73\00:13:21.03
to live and learn.
00:13:21.06\00:13:22.56
In turn, these
children not only receive
00:13:22.60\00:13:24.60
a good Christian education,
00:13:24.63\00:13:26.30
but they grow up to be
strong pillars for the church.
00:13:26.33\00:13:28.97
I just got a letter
00:13:44.19\00:13:45.52
from our
sponsored daughter, Sheila.
00:13:45.55\00:13:47.16
I've got to tell you,
00:13:47.19\00:13:48.52
there is nothing like
getting one of these letters.
00:13:48.56\00:13:50.66
Our family has
been able to sponsor her
00:13:50.69\00:13:52.86
through Child
Impact International.
00:13:52.89\00:13:54.80
Because of that, she's
got a great place to live.
00:13:54.83\00:13:57.70
She's got good food.
She's got great clothing.
00:13:57.73\00:14:00.67
Best of all, I now
found out she's in college.
00:14:00.70\00:14:03.81
She's in nursing school.
00:14:03.84\00:14:05.57
There's nothing like
getting a letter like this.
00:14:05.61\00:14:08.84
You need to start
getting these letters too.
00:14:08.88\00:14:11.01
Listen, through Child Impact,
00:14:11.05\00:14:12.58
you can make a huge difference
in the life of a child,
00:14:12.61\00:14:15.92
and I promise you,
00:14:15.95\00:14:17.35
it's going to
make a huge difference
00:14:17.39\00:14:18.99
in your life too.
00:14:19.02\00:14:20.36