Buds of Christ

Buds of Christ mission is to empower children and enable well-being with the main focus on rural orphan and vulnerable children from the lower socio-economic class. As part of it’s mission, Buds of Christ supports the educational needs of children to keep them in school, as most families see these expenses as a burden. Most of the children are complete orphans (who have lost both parents) or semi-orphans (one parent alive) and looked after by aged grandparents or distant relatives. Children are from government school and education is offered free of cost, children are given only text books; while note books ,uniform and other materials have to bought by children. The basic cost for every child comes to at least Rs 1000/year, which is unaffordable for most of the families where there is no male bread winner. Buds of Christ tries to mobilize support every year to support the children basic educational cost. The total number of children reached through Buds of Christ as on June 20...

I am Kannan, for me acceptance and support from peers like me make me feel more confident and have a positive outlook towards life. I am representing vetri kootam, young children group in Tiruchengode taluk of Namakkal district in Tamilnadu. It is the children group formed through the initiative of Buds of Christ on October 2009. Now we are currently 20 members actively functioning as a support group and advocacy group in ensuring the rights of children affected by HIV are safeguarded. I am 16 years old and living with HIV for the last 3 years. The importance of knowing about the infection and the prevention measures one needs to take was a learning that I received after knowing my status. Though text books and curriculum includes topics on reproductive health and sex organs, the topic is just dealt and sometimes even skipped by the teacher. This arouses keen interest among young children like me, which can also lead to risk conditions .There is a need for proper access to right and qu...

Buds of Christ emerged out of the need to empower children affected by HIV and AIDS. This instinct was sown deeply in my heart in 2003 when I worked closely with people living with HIV in a high prevalent district Namakkal, Tamilnadu; the issue that hit my heart hard was that the external funded project was unable to address the most deserving concern of children orphaned by HIV and AIDS. Though that project reached out to more than 2000 families, there were more than 3000 children in those communities and most of them were unattended. Children who were affected by HIV and AIDS were also at the brim of vulnerability as they started experiencing physical and sexual abuse; children dropping from school and getting into menial labour to support their sick parents; children living with HIV were not cared by family members; girls of HIV positive parents were getting married as early at 13 and 14 years of age. Having touched by these experiences and vulnerabilities of children, we realized ...