The Jewels of India

LWCF met some wonderful and kind Adivasi people during their first trip to India.

by Sue Abrams, Living Water Children's Fund BOD Member

Spring 2025 Newsletter Update

India has been on the LWCF bucket list for many years…after all, there had to be orphanages, underserved schools, children in desperate situations. All part of our mission!

Thanks to some connections in two areas of northern India, Sherry and I finally checked off that bucket list item. Two+ weeks in northern India provided some tourist adventures (you can’t go to northern India without going to the Taj Mahal!) and time in several places where LWCF could make a difference in children’s lives.

Thanks to contacts in Aurangabad and Jalalpur, we were able to visit remote villages in both places. Our goal was to observe and learn and assess needs that, perhaps, LWCF could help meet.

In Aurangabad we visited a remote village of Dalits (the lowest caste in the caste system in India) where women were being trained to process food and were selling their spices on the internet. The children attended a government school that had bright classrooms and energetic teachers. The poverty was palpable, but people were accessing programs that would give them a chance to improve their lives and the lives of their families.

Thanks to a little googling by Sherry when we had a some extra time in Aurangabad, we found a program that rescues boys from the streets and abject poverty, run by Jay, a young, former pharmacist. The program prioritizes education and he serves a maximum of 25 boys, helping them finish their education, train for careers and move out of the poverty they have experienced their whole lives. Their new facility needs a computer lab, among other things.

The forests of Jalalpur are hours from the city and include several villages where the Indian indigenous people, the Adivasi, live. The Adivasi are not part of the caste system, which they reject, but they have been subject to government appropriation of their land and are among the poorest people in India. We were welcomed by local elected officials, teachers, families and children. Like children everywhere we have traveled, they were beautiful, friendly, inquisitive and thrilled to see us. They are poor but proud and wanted to show us their villages and invited us into their homes. We visited schools and learning centers where resources are few, but human potential is great. Many of the needs in these villages fit with the LWCF mission.

Everywhere we went we were welcomed with smiles, hugs, photos and thank yous. We were told over and over that people from so far away care about their needs gave them hope for the future. Two American ladies who came so far to meet with students, teachers, families, was a once in a lifetime experience for so many of the people we met. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience for us too.

Every child deserves a chance ❤️

Thanks to generous donations Living Water Children’s Fund has been able to help children with special needs receive the medical care and education they need.

Please consider donating to support other students at with special needs, as any gift, big or small, helps us on our mission to make sure children have their basic needs met so that they may flourish and grow.