CHILD comes alongside Metropolitan Mission (MM) in India to improve nutrition and support education for children from poverty-stricken families. MM operates in the eastern province of Andhra Pradesh. CHILD funds daily meals of rice and protein for the 100-130 children and staff living in the MM Children's Home. CHILD provides salaries for all the teachers at the MM School which serves on average 200-250 students.

​CHILD helps fund special projects to improve the community's quality of life, such as sewing programs for women and a breakfast program at an impoverished community school.

CHILD supports disaster relief efforts through MM during devastating floods, and more recently, the COVID crisis.

CHILD provides safe and reliable drinking water by funding the drilling of wells in villages affected by extreme drought. CHILD has funded over 70 wells that now provide clean water for 200,000+ people.

MM School

MM runs a non-profit primary school on their 8 acre lot just outside a nearby town. As of 2022, the MM school has 220 children enrolled in the Telegu and English programs. The MM school is based on a "pay what you can" program, mostly for Dalit children. Many of these families would not be able to afford high level education for their children, especially in English. MM provides an opportunity for these children to dream of a future where they can be lifted out of the cycle of poverty, and eventually come back with sincere thanks to invest in their community and inspire more children to follow in their footsteps.  

MM School Teachers

CHILD has funded 2 buses and a motor rickshaw to help transport the children to school which is a great help as 11 villages are now sending children to the MM school. Many villages do not have either own schools, or the schools are underfunded and lack the resources to teach well, so having transportation available helps these kids access quality education while living at home.

CHILD funds the teachers’ salaries at MM school and provides a large Christmas bonus so that the valuable and well trained staff can focus on their love of teaching rather than how they will provide for their families. This also helps MM retain quality teaching staff without passing that cost on to the students.​ CHILD also funded a photocopier which will be of great use for the school.​

CHILD provides school uniforms and textbooks, enabling families who couldn't afford these expenses to send their children to school prepared to learn.

​The MM school is a critical part of helping their community prosper. ​

By providing affordable high quality education, many children now have the opportunity to pursue secondary education, as universities in India only teach in English. MM also puts a special emphasis on educating girls, because not only does it keep them safe from being trafficked, but educated girls who eventually become mothers educate the entire family and keep them out of abject poverty.

MM Children's Home

MM runs a children’s home on site for children over 5 years old who have lost their parents or who cannot live with their families due to extreme poverty. It is similar to a boarding school structure where kids are able to return to their families during school breaks.

CHILD supplies rice, vegetables, fruit, and protein-rich food like milk, eggs, peanuts, mutton, and chicken to the 100-130 children and staff in the children’s home. All the children eat breakfast and supper at the home. Half go to public school where they get lunch, but they come home very hungry as the food in the public school doesn’t meet their nutritional needs. Rice funded by CHILD is good quality and tastes great. The cooks make a different menu for each day of the week, which is then repeated the next week.

Each year CHILD also gifts a new set of Christmas clothes for the children and staff at the home. If there are enough funds left at the end of the year, they also buy blankets for widows in the community as a Christmas gift.

In order to keep the kids at the children’s home healthy and safe, CHILD has funded a generator for the home. Encountering snakes in the dark at night is a very real danger but a simple solution is to keep a light on to provide visibility. Because of the many power outages, there often are no lights so having a generator solves this problem.

CHILD funded a tractor and trailer in 2022 which are used on the 8 acre lot of the children’s home for tilling the ground to plant vegetables like spinach, eggplant, okra and more. MM also planted some fruit trees, and so far they have been able to sell many mangos and use the proceeds to repair windows and put up mosquito screens in the children’s home.

​The trailer is also used weekly to take a load of rice from the storage at the children’s home to the mill to remove the husks which keeps the rice fresh. The trailer is also used to get provisions from Walmart, load the buffaloes, transport children’s luggage and for many other tasks.

Two water buffalo were also purchased in 2022 to supply milk for the children’s home. A family skilled in looking after buffaloes was hired to live on the home grounds. They feed the buffaloes, look after their health, milk them, clean their stall and look after all their needs.

Wells

For drought stricken villages in India, access to clean drinking water means having a future. Many villages in Andhra Pradesh are devastated by drought during the hottest months of the year. The wells drilled through CHILD's support have changed many people's futures from one of thirst and illness to one of health and hope.

Some wells provided by the government have dried up and others have electric pumps, but since electricity isn’t available all the time, neither is the water. MM works hard to ensure that each well that is drilled will meet the needs of the village and provide water throughout the many dry seasons that will come in the future.

One well was drilled in a larger village of 10,000 people that recently had 500 families relocated there. Due to the significant increase in population combined with the yearly drought, water scarcity was a big concern. Thankfully MM was able to come alongside a social worker they know in the area and drill a well that now provides clean, safe drinking water to the new residents. The well also produces enough water for agricultural use and livestock nearby so that food crops and animals can continue providing food and milk for the residents. Even the president of the village came to the opening of the well and was very grateful that clean water was now available for so many more people.

Disaster Relief

Flooding

Yearly flooding in Andhra Pradesh province is a very real issue that residents have to fight through. Major floods can produce over 10 ft of water in some of the poorest areas. Thousands of people are displaced and evacuated to relief camps, leaving behind their homes and livelihoods which are destroyed by the floods.

Thankfully, CHILD is able to respond to this need and allow MM to mobilize a team to put together and hand out relief packages with food, blankets, clothes, and other necessities. In 2022, over 400 families received the packages, and they were incredibly grateful. It may seem like only a drop in the bucket for a disaster this large, but for each one of those families, it was a lifeline that provided hope in their darkest hour. MM was very grateful to the volunteers who served selflessly and for the funds provided by CHILD.

covid

The main disaster in India throughout 2020 to 2021 was the COVID pandemic, and MM helped many people make it through thanks to the donations from CHILD. With waves of COVID hitting India hard, many parents were out of work and left with nowhere to turn.
During this crisis, MM ran an extensive food distribution program for over 300 families in their area. These were mainly families with children from the MM Children's Home and families with handicapped children. They also gave nutritious food to 300 lepers and provided care packages to about 100 mentally and physically handicapped children and adults. They handed out meals to many living in severe poverty, including the homeless and bedridden.

In the summer of 2021, two elderly people came to ask the MM director for food and were given a 25kg bag of rice. They wondered how it was possible that in the midst of a summer full of COVID, they were able to celebrate like it was Christmas because of this wonderful gift!

CHILD also funded two oxygen concentrators and oxygen tanks to treat bedridden individuals with severe cases of COVID who were not able to afford to go to the hospital. They were well used and saved many lives. Prior to the Province of Andhra Pradesh funding vaccinations for all residents, CHILD helped MM purchase vaccines and over 600 people were vaccinated.
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Nutrition Program

In the fall of 2022, MM started a nutrition program at a school in a slum area. Through CHILD’s support, MM volunteers provide an egg and a cup of milk 6 mornings a week for around 70 elementary school kids. They also receive fruit once a week, which is a favourite among the children. Of these children, about 30 come to school with an empty stomach. With the program, teachers have noticed that children are much more energetic, attentive to their studies, and overall healthier. One unexpected benefit is that the children want to come to school because they are getting milk and eggs.

Sewing Program

Creating programs to break the cycle of poverty is a major goal for MM, and sewing programs have been a successful example of that. For 10 months, MM holds a sewing class for a group of women that grants them a tailoring certificate. This certificate allows them to start a home tailoring business, giving them the opportunity to earn an income in a flexible and reliable way. Many of these women are single moms or do not have enough income from their spouse alone to stay out of poverty. This program enables them to keep themselves and their families well provided for, and in some cases may provide the finances to send their children to a better school. Everything about this program helps empower women and pave the way for a better future for the whole community.

CHILD provides the teacher's salary, materials and tools, and also gifts each woman a sewing machine upon completion of the program. As of 2022, six sewing programs have run in 4 different villages.

Stories of Hope

One woman participating in a sewing program is part of the Dalit class and is very poor. She is not able to go out and find work due to her low level of education and frail constitution, and her husband works as a day labourer. Their income was not nearly enough to support their family and they suffered a lot as a result.

Since graduating from the sewing program, she has the skills and resources she needs to provide for her family, as she has received a sewing machine from CHILD as part of the program. She now works as a seamstress and is even able to make clothes for her children to cut down on costs. Her family is so thankful to now be able to support themselves and live comfortably.

Malleswari, an orphan raised at the MM Children's Home, was nurtured by the loving and encouraging staff at the home. As she grew, she decided to become a nurse. She was financially supported by a nursing scholarship from CHILD and graduated with much celebration. She became employed at a local hospital.