A Brief Snapshot of India...

India is located on the southern tip of central Asia, just above the Equator and is the seventh largest national landmass in the world. India's large triangular peninsula is flanked to the west by the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal to the east, and the Indian Ocean to the south. To the north is the highest mountain system on earth-the Himalayas. Even though India has immense resources, it is a country which continues to struggle with poverty, over-population, malnutrition and disease. Since gaining independence from the British in 1947, the population of India has grown dramatically. Millions of people have moved from rural villages into the major cities in search of jobs. Many are now forced to live in slums. Since more than the entire population of Canada are born each year in India, it will soon be the most populous nation in the world. With already over a billion people, India has a population of children in excess of 500,000,000! That's twice the population of the United States in kids!

 

A Complex Religious Landscape...

Over 1600 languages or dialects are spoken in India. Today India has 25 state territories whose boundaries have been established largely based on language. Hindi and English are the two national languages. India is also a land of many religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Christianity. Though such diversity makes India rich in cultural gifts, the many differences also create serious problems in communication, in education, and in bringing health and economic stability to all of the Indian people, especially the poor. Bethania hopes to help alleviate some of these problems by focusing on the needs of helpless children.

Where are the Children?

It is difficult for any outsider to imagine life in India. For a visitor from the United States or Europe, it may seem like a journey to the past. For a casual observer life in India seems to have changed very little over hundreds of years. Because of overpopulation and economic difficulties, one may see as many as 10 people sometimes huddled together in a one-room hut under a straw thatch roof. To imagine young children sent out from these huts to beg along the roadways for food fills us with sorrow and compassion. Inadequate sanitary conditions, poverty and a lack of medical facilities means that malnutrition, dehydration, upper respiratory tract infections, and acute diarrheal infections are still common causes of unimaginable suffering in India. And to be a poor, abandoned, or disabled child in India is even worse. Without intervention these conditions are synonymous with early death.