Financial crisis affects orphan homes

The ongoing financial crises have impacted not only the nations, multi-nationals and the families but also the orphan homes run by Non-Government Organisations (NGOs). Most of these children, who have taken shelter in orphanages, are victims of wars, disaster, social conflict and marital discords.

Before embarking on his role as President of SOS Children’s Villages International, Siddhartha Kaul, spoke to The Sunday Indian and identified three challenges of sustainability, livelihood and the need to look after a million children, before flying to Austria to take up the responsibility of his new role.

SOS which takes care off 370,000 abandoned children across the globe is finding it difficult to run the day-t-day operation because of financial constraints.

"Food inflation has affected us badly. Even though governments in India and elsewhere are claiming that it's around 5 to 9 per cent. I think it's quite high and is hoovering around 16 per cent to 20 per cent," Kaul said adding that the worldwide income for 2011 is predicted to be around 886.8 million Euros.

Kaul said that he can't tell children to skip a meal just because of high food inflation. However, income for the SOS International has not declined he added. But what concerns him is the recent devaluation of the Nordic currency in relation to US dollars. "It was bad in 2009 and was worse in 2010," he added.

Asked about the contributions from corporates and individuals, Kaul acknowledged that neither the SOS International nor its India chapter were tapping the corporates aggressively like other global NGOs do.

Kaul was not very enthusiastic about contribution from the local governments in India. "Maharashtra pays Rs 900 and Kerala Rs 500 per child in our villages, which is too little," Kaul said adding he needs more money to run the philanthropic work.

Recently, SoS added a new children's village at Chettikulam in Sri Lanka. Kaul said the SoS management was also caught up with the career issues of the orphan children. "With worldwide retrenchment and unemployment, we are also looking at the career issues", he added.

Due to global economic downturn the goalpost for looking after one million children has been shifted by four years from 2016 to 2020, he added.