About the Project!

By Tanka Rai (Management)

The Orphan Welfare Home Nepal (OWHN) is a purely private non-profit organization with the sole aim of providing basic social services such as shelter and education to children who might otherwise perish. It was established in 1999 and is operated by a handful of Nepalese trekking guides with the aid and assistance provided by German friends.

Nepal is of course not the only country with orphans needing care. However, as a developing country, Nepal has the additional problems of poverty and internal conflicts. Therefore, the number of orphans in the country has been steadily increasing and there are very few service organizations to take responsibility for care of these helpless children.

During their treks to different places over years, the trekking guides discovered some extremely under-developed villages where poor people are living deprived of facilities like electricity, health care centers, education, etc. Due to the lack of health care facilities people of all different ages die due to treatable and preventable diseases.

As a result, some children have lost their parents and become orphans. Only a few have relatives to look after them or inherit land from their parents, but many are left with neither relatives nor land to provide their livelihoods. In this way they become completely helpless with only a dark future to look forward to. In this case, rich people and landowners in the villages have brought the orphans to their homes and forced them to work as child laborers. Some of these landlords are cruel to the orphans, providing neither education nor sufficient food and clothing. The landlords even make them to do work beyond their ability. Some orphans cannot bear this treatment and run away towards cities to spend their lives as street children and survive by stealing wares or swindling people. Some of them are forced to become child laborers in local restaurants, cleaning utensils, or in the garment and carpet factories, and even in houses doing household work.

With the strong desire to help these young orphans in some way, we at the OWHN are interested in collecting funds to provide shelter and education to secure these children’s futures. With the help and suggestions of several generous friends, the ORPHAN WELFARE HOME NEPAL was established a few years ago with the permission of His Majesty’s Government of Nepal.

The orphans who are brought to this organization come from remote villages of Nepal. These are children whose parents have died and who have no living relatives who can take care of them and provide them shelter. The number of orphans in this organization will be increased in accordance with the amount of donations which are received.