A letter to our supporters

Dear Supporter of The Love Trust,

It is a long time since I last communicated with you to thank you very warmly for your support of our work in India.

I am pleased to tell you that our orphanage in Buldana is still flourishing. In a protective, hygienic environment we still save the lives of Indian babies and toddlers who have no other support and without us would have died. Over seven hundred have been saved. Your support has been crucial.

It is now more than 20 years since we registered our charity: in fact on 8th August 1997. We still have working with us in India the Agashe family Harshwarden who oversaw the building of the orphanage and its early development, and his wife Seema who is absolutely devoted to the cause and finds time in a busy Doctor’s life to manage and promote the Love Trust.

Almost as important is Kalpana Deshpandi who still lives within the orphanage on the Khamgaon Road supervising the care of the babies: Sanjay Patil is still with is too taking care of administration. Among the ayahs feeding the babies and keeping them clean, are several who joined us when we opened.

Our charity has also depended on personal contacts sustained in India. Now that Heidy and I are, at 83 too old to travel, other trustees, always at their own expense, have made the journey including this year our son Martin and his partner Cath.

Over the years there have of course been new developments. Our main purpose is always to get our babies adopted in India, but there is a minority, often suffering from disabilities, for whom adoptive parents could not be found. The Indian authorities have given permission for international adoptions. A few of our babies are now set to grow up in places as widely scattered as California, Germany, Italy and Malta.

For various disconnected reasons there has been a recent decrease in the number of babies we receive. We work, as you know, in a very extensive, very poor area of Maharashtra. Our area contains jungle it is where Heidy and I saw our only tiger in the wild as well as hundreds of small agricultural villages growing sugar, cotton and other tropical crops. How can we let those in need usually very young women know that our facility exists and that we are there to help them?

Twenty years ago, when we started out, we put “adverts” on the back of country buses and sent out leaflets to many of the villages. We judge that the time is right to repeat that exercise. By no means will villages have mobile phones so we are producing and attractive leaflet, designed by Harsh and Seema’s daughter Madhumita. It will of course be printed in Marathi, the local language spoken by close on 100 million people. It will be distributed this winter but we thought you would be interested to see an English translation, so we enclose a copy with this letter.

Thank you again for all your support.

Yours Sincerely

Stephen Love
CoFounder and Chair

Mockbridge House,
Henfield,
West Sussex,
BN5 9AD