Beneficiaries

Children at Cornerstone Children’s Orphanage:

• The children of DKSHA’s Cornerstone Orphanage: we house orphaned, semi-orphaned, and/or economically orphaned children who have been neglected and are in need of our protection.
• Child laborers and potential drop-outs: these children live with their families but typically come from poor backgrounds. Many of these families cannot afford to put their children through school. Other families struggle to keep their children from  dropping-out.
• DKSHA has been supporting disadvantaged children since 2003. Please read how here.

Children under Family Based Care (FBC) Program:

• DKSHA has partnered with Miracle Foundation India for the past 8 years to improve the standards of care that we were providing to the children in our care. Our combined focus in the past has been grounded in helping orphaned and vulnerable children  to have a better quality of life but has evolved to also ensure that every child has an opportunity to grow up in a family. Children thrive best when they are loved, protected and with a permanent family.
• As Miracle Foundation moves forward its vision for a family for every child, the DKSHA board has decided to align itself with this change and implement family strengthening and family-based alternative care at Cornerstone Children’s Home.
• Under the revised strategy, DKSHA will identify children for re-integration and prepare an individual care plan (ICP) for each child. Each child will undergo the case management process executed by the staff at Cornerstone in the guidance of Miracle Foundation India.
• The workforce at Cornerstone children’s home has received training and is capable of carrying out the case management process in a structured manner. Any decision for the children will be taken by keeping their best interest in mind.
• The end goal is permanent placement of children in families, promotion of overall sustainable development, work through collaboration and convergence of services, creating community ownership and responsiveness, and strengthening the overall community child protection mechanism.

Local Communities, especially Marginalized Farmers and Women:

Most of the people living in our target area are the Dalits – the most oppressed demographic in India. The Dalits are typically landless people and they are considered to be the lowest caste of society, often forced to live in poverty.

Many Dalits women have no choice, but to single-handedly shoulder the responsibility of taking care of the home – this is due to their husband’s constant need to migrate in order to find work. The Dalits men typically find work as day-labourers, for which they receive less than 1.5 USD per day. This salary is insufficient to feed one person, let alone a whole family.