Purchase Gala 2024
Event Tickets
Event Tickets
The Problem
home for boys with special needs
Just 40 special needs children across India were adopted from 2018 to 2019, highlighting societal bias and the reluctance of adoptive parents to take on the responsibility of dealing with the challenges of disabilities minor and severe.
The 40 children accounted for only 1.12 percent of children adopted in 2018-19. But the number becomes even more insignificant when compared to the 18 million children that are abandoned to the streets, most of whom have physical and/or mental disabilities.
Behind the numbers are the narratives of children struggling to find a loving home and parents wary of accepting them for a variety of reasons, including lack of awareness, perceived stigma and financial considerations.
The streets of Delhi alone are home to more than 500,000 abandoned children. While the city has many shelter homes offering care for children who live on the streets, there is only one institution in Delhi for children suffering from mental and physical challenges.
This institution is known for being overrun. It has the capacity to house 400 children, but there are more than 1,000 children living there. It is notorious for its mistreatment and neglect of children. In fact, children die there every day. These children do not have identification. They are nameless and their suffering and deaths are invisible to the world.
Our Response
A Beautiful Home
ONE LIFE to LOVE is rescuing children with special needs who have been abandoned or neglected to the streets. We welcome these children with arms wide open and provide them a caring, loving, and secure home where all their needs from food, health, shelter, and education are met.
Founder, Courtney Deacon Lalotra, was inspired to open this orphanage by a boy named Sundar, which means Beautiful. (Click here to read the full story).
A BEAUTIFUL HOME offers children who have been abandoned or orphaned a place where they can heal and grow. It is a place where they can work to overcome their challenges; a refuge where they can be a kid again: to play, to laugh, to learn, to make friends, and to do all the things a kid should do.
A Home
Our children are given the security of a house they can call home. Children are enabled in a way that they develop the ability to recognize and express their individual interests and talents.
A mother
OLTL HouseMothers are extensively trained women who provide constant long-term care, love and support for our children. This team of compassionate, loving women are widows who thrive in the family-like environment they receive at OLTL’s Beautiful Home.
Family-Like Environment
The children are surrounded by a team of volunteer counselors, doctors, nurses, physical therapists and teachers, who become more like family members. The children consider each other siblings and feel secure in the love and care given by the housemothers.
A Village
A Village! OLTL’s Goal is to build a village, including several of our orphanages and a special education center among other projects thus creating a stable, secure and supportive community environment.
Our Impact
The Four R’s of Sustainable Development
Rescue
With the help of local authorities, community and family members, children at risk are identified and rescued from the streets and slums. Often, the children are found abused, abandoned, severely neglected, exploited and/or orphaned.
Recondition
Once a child is welcomed into their new home, we assess the amount of trauma they have experienced. Children are conditioned by these traumas and can develop behaviors of violence and emotional instability. Our initial work with the child is to surround them with the necessary love, care, and support so they can overcome challenges and develop healthy habits. Simultaneously, licensed professionals provide medical care, nutrition, and therapy according to their needs.
Rehabilitate
During the rehabilitation phase, short and long-term goals are implemented according to each child’s strengths, weaknesses, and personal goals. Individualized education plans are implemented. Where applicable, vocational training.
Reintegrate
Our end goal is for our children to grow into healthy independent adults. We work hard to ensure that our children have access to college education, jobs, and/or trade skills. However, we understand that many (if not most) of our children will forever remain dependent on us due to their physical and mental disabilities, or the lack of their own family’s support. In these cases, we aim to provide a life-long support system for the child in our Home.
House Mothers:
In OLTL’s BEAUTIFUL HOME orphaned or abandoned children are cared for in family homes by women who have dedicated their lives to being Housemothers. When our Founder, Courtney Deacon Lalotra, began rescuing children from the streets one by one, she eventually needed help to care for them. This is when the practice of hiring ‘housemothers’ was introduced.
A housemother is responsible for raising each child as her own and must be able to meet their physical and emotional needs from infancy right up to adulthood.
Training for a housemother takes up to two years, and includes three months of theoretical training (on subjects including education, counselling and child psychology, housekeeping, nutrition and conflict resolution) conducted by social workers and child care professionals. This is followed by one year of practical training working in a BEAUTIFUL HOME alongside the housemothers. This lengthy training period prepares them for the reality of becoming a housemother.
Once qualified, housemothers receive free room and board, a household allowance and a salary. Every day, housemothers ensure that the physical and emotional needs of her children are met and every child in her family is happy and feel that they belong.