Balgram Orphanage

Balgram Orphanage

Village Rai

Sonepat, Haryana

(RC Delhi Garden City supported since 1999)

The Rotary Club Delhi Garden City has been supporting the Balgram Orphanage since 1999. Spread over an area of four acres, Balgram is a home for destitute and under-privileged children, located 20 miles north of New Delhi. opposite the Motilal Nehru School of Sports, Rai.

Opened in the International Year of the Child, 1979, under the aegis of Haryana Rajya Bal Bhawan Trust under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt of Haryana, Balgram provides a homely atmosphere within its residential accommodation of 16 houses (each having multiple bedrooms, a reading room, a mother’s room and a drawing/dining room with an attached kitchen). Each house is managed by a mother (a widow or a separated woman herself), dedicated to the cause of providing motherly love and homely atmosphere. These children and the mother stay as a ‘Family’ cooking their own food, washing clothes, studying, recreational activities etc .Apart from the administrative building, there is a lush green play field and swings for children to play.

Children at Balgram are either abandoned, orphaned, or destitute children (i.e. who have one parent alive) from Haryana only and ranging from the age group of one month to 21 years. The ratio of boys and girls generally stays at 40:60 and boys are transferred to the Bal Bhawan at Madhuban, Karnal after attaining the age of 12.

RC Delhi Garden City has focused on three areas at Balgram: health, infrastructure & education. The orphanage currently has around 150 children for whom we have been funding dietary & nutritional supplements by providing daily milk, fruits etc. Our club has also been providing additional tuitions in Maths, English & Science.

Our club had taken up a major infrastructure renovation effort in 2000 at Balgram under the Rotary Foundation's Children Opportunity Matching Grant No. 610. The buildings were repaired, leaking pipes, traps, internal sanitary fittings were repaired. All electrical switchboards and wiring was replaced, and chairs, tables, and windows were repaired.

After completing the project under the said grant, the Rotary Club of Delhi Garden City is funding the project on a continuous basis. We are supplementing food by providing milk and fruit on a daily basis to give the children a balanced diet. The children have shown a marked improvement in their health

Press coverage of RC Delhi Garden City's support for Balgram Orphanage can be found in:

• Hindustan Times, 10th April, 2009

• The Tribune, 2nd December, 2008

We also took responsibility to improve education standards by providing extra tuitions in Maths, Science and English. Three teachers have been hired on a regular basis since inception to do this job. There is a vast improvement in their education standards of the children and it gives us immense pleasure that more and more children are coming up with good results each year.

The Balgram Project of RC Delhi Garden City was awarded the "Significant Achievement Award" by Rotary International in the Rotary year 2006-07.

In October 2015, RC Delhi Garden City played a key role in the marriage of six girls from Balgram. Club members overwhelmingly rose to the occasions and raised more than Rs. 3 lakhs in cash and gifts. The club decided to gift a gold chain & a pair of ear rings to each girl, plus cash shagun of Rs. 5,100/- to each bride. Three additional girls were married in April 2016, and members again donated funds to purchase gold chains for the brides.

In 2012, we arranged for a donation of blankets, pillows, towels and bedsheets from the Property Management Office at the US Embassy in Delhi. We also paid college tuition for the most deserving students, funding 2 girls pursuing M.Sc. in Home Science at Kurukshetra University in 2011-12.

Under the District Simplified Grant, our club donated sports goods to the children in Balgram in February 2010. These included table tennis tables, complete cricket equipments, badminton nets and rackets, footballs, volleyballs, carom boards, chess sets, etc.

The children were also the beneficiaries of our Hepatitis B Vaccination program in 2009-10 where 150 children and staff at this center received three doses of the vaccine to provide them lifetime immunity from Hepatitis B.

Our club supports food supplements and tutions for all children, besides one-time expenses on computers, DVD and sports items. An air-conditioned, fully equipped mobile dental van is regularly deputed for dental checkups/treatment of the children.

Keeping vocational training in mind, our Club provided new computers in 2009 and again in 2011 to impart computer literacy to the children. The Club has also provided a DVD to Balgram for the children's entertainment.