How we work
CHIT - How we work
Operations
The primary purpose of CHIT is to raise money for work in India. While our objects are fairly wide, in practice our focus is wholly upon supporting the work of Christiana Childrens Homes
(CCH) in Bapatla and Nidamarru the poor rural state of Andhra Pradesh, and their connected charity the Conrad & Norbert Academy
(C&NA) which operates the school adjacent to the Bapatla home.
Through CCH we are able to provide a caring home, a nutritious diet, medical and all personal needs, as well as an education up to and including university degree level, for 250 children and young people. We have started to explore ways of supporting the children and young people in their home environment, and at any time are supporting about 20 who are HIV+ or suffering from TB. However, to date, we have found that for most the supervised environment is the best way to enable them to make the most of the education we offer.
The long term investment in young people requires a long term perspective. We therefore maintain a sponsorship
programme through which they can see the results of the work they support through the lives of a child or a group of children.
At the same time we usually have a number of projects on the go. Over the last few years they have fallen into ... categories:
- to maintain compliance with the tightening safeguarding arrangements in India - which we welcome
- to help CCH and C&NA to become more self-sufficient financially
- to fund specific expenses like improved mosquito protection or a new vehicle at the home, or equipping a classroom in the school.
Bapatla home
Nidamarru home (children at school!)
C&NA's Elizabeth Barrie High School, Bapatla
This provides opportunities to support CCH and C&NA in other ways. For example, we have encouraged the use of alternative energy, and have experimented with solar water heating and solar electricity. Despite the low costs, it has not yet proved financially advantageous, although we have had solar heating since 2007, providing a ready supply a hot water for washing. More productively we have enabled volunteer teachers to spend spells of between 4 weeks and 3 months working in the Bapatla school, exposing the staff and children to the different learning styles needed if they are to take advantage of further studies.
Financial cycle
Every year, around the end of January, a group of CHIT Trustees visit the childrens homes in India. We tour the homes and school and talk with the trustees, staff and children. We listen to the successes and difficulties of the previous year, and discuss the challenges ahead. We have formal meetings with CCH trustees and staff on Education, Welfare, and Finance. and we conclude with a joint meeting with the whole trustee body (Management Committee) of CCH. Through this we receive budget proposals for the next year. We evaluate them locally, then bring them back to UK for ratification at a full trustee meeting when we will give full or partial approval. Partial approval means that we will review some items later in the year when the actual income and expenditure is clearer.
The budget is profiled over the year, as the basis for roughly monthly grant payments from CHIT to CCH.
CHIT is informed on progress through monthly welfare and financial reports from India, and emails when needed.
