Progetto India,The Shelter: Who we are
On January 14th, 2004 a new association named "The Shelter-Progetto India-Charitable Trust" was created in India,
based in Gurgaon district, Darbaripur village, Haryana.
Influenced by their previous experiences as volunteers in Mother Teresa’s houses, Sandra (from Italy) and Saji (from Kerala - India)
began to operate this Trust. Their inspirations grew by working together for the poor people,
by sharing painful and joyful experiences among the poorest of the poor, and by coming to understand their needs and attitudes...
That is how a project such as this begins, with a lot of effort and will.
New steps are made day by day with the constant divine presence guiding daily choices.
That is how The Shelter began and that is how we hope it will continue,
through the help of Divine Providence and with the help and support of our friends and benefactors.
What is "The Shelter"?
At first, our project aimed to provide help for any kind of emergency situation,
in particular giving assistance to orphaned and homeless children in slums.
This help was given in the form of medical assistance, free medical camps, clothing, toys and school materials for the children.
The project then developed into giving the children an actual shelter where they can receive care and comfort on a daily basis.
With this goal in mind, in March 2004 we got the land on which to build our Shelter.
In November 2005, we moved into the partially ready Shelter and started our work with our first baby.
She was a three year old girl who weighed only 5 kg, was malnourished and had tuberculosis.
After her we received more children. At the present we are keeping 11 children (seven boys and four girls)
and we are looking to get a few women and other children too.
In the future, we are hoping to be able to house a maximum of 40 children and few women.
We are hoping that the women will be able to help us in managing the house and caring for the children.
Also, we plan on conducting workshops with them in order for them to learn to create their own handcrafts to support the project.
Our Shelter is located in a village about 50 km from Delhi. Our village’s name is Darbaripur and it belongs to the Gurgaon district.
This is a special area because it is free of any kind of pollution and contamination, no traffic or noise!
Our children enjoy it here and they are breathing very good air!
Of course we have our negative situations here too, like our isolation from any kind of comfort, but.....
we are managing well and doing our best!