Orphanages Cont.- World's Children

The children of the William Moon Hostel. Former hostel administrator Pearl Sunder Raj is standing on the far left. She is now the administrator at another WCI-sponsored orphanage.

The Crawford boys in their dormitory. It is common for the dorms to be just one large room with no beds. The children sleep on straw mats on the floor.

Laveena Anil Kumar is standing in the courtyard of the school at Mary Knott Girls’ Hostel. Hundreds of children from the local community attend the free school along with the 280 or so orphan boys and girls who live there.

Omega and the school principal standing in the high school recess area for the students. The hostel runs a free school for village children that also educates the orphanage kids.

William Moon Hostel

The William Moon Hostel is located 50 miles west of the city of Hyderabad in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The hostel has 85 children, both girls and boys. Located in an area that is dry even in normal years, a prolonged drought has worsened conditions here and the water level in wells has dropped significantly. The main income here comes from mining slate rock, which breaks into smooth, flat plates, used as roof tiles and house siding. See their special needs.

Mary Knott Girls’ Hostel and Crawford Boys’ Home

These two homes are co-located in the same compound administered by the Methodist Church of India. It is located 30 miles west of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. There are 250 girls in the Mary Knott Hostel and approximately 30 boys in the Crawford Boys’ Home. The home is managed by Laveena Anil Kumar. Most of our homes are administered by educated women. Laveena and her sister Omega (who runs another Methodist orphanage) have master’s degrees. India is a male-dominated society and it is unusual to find women with the administrative responsibilities that the Methodist and Catholic churches have given to bright women like Laveena. See their special needs.

Methodist Boarding Home for Boys and Girls

Located in a very rural and dry area of Andhra Pradesh, a visitor is struck by the colorful clothing worn by women you pass along the road. Immigrants from the northern India state of Rajasthan have populated this area and their tribal attire includes bright red dresses for the women with numerous mirrors of all sizes sewn onto the women’s clothes. Large rings in the women’s noses and ears complete the attire.

The men of this area migrate to wherever there is work, leaving their families for months at a time. Sadly, many of the men frequent prostitutes when they are away and unknowingly catch AIDS which they give to their wives and sometimes their children when they return home.

The Methodist Boarding Home for Boys and Girls suffers from a lack of sanitary water. The water is drawn from an open well located some 200 yards away, across a highway. The open well is used by an estimated 2,000 people for water collection, bathing and livestock watering. The green color of the water is testimony to the unhealthiness of this source of water. Next door to the hostel is a Methodist hospital. The foreign-educated husband and wife doctors who run the hospital told us they treat the hostel children for gastrointestinal diseases and skin ailments on a regular basis. We have paid to have several wells sunk on the hostel grounds, but have failed to find water each time. The hospital treats many AIDS patients and some of the children in the hostel are AIDS orphans. See their special needs.

Omega under photos of WCI founder A.E. Purviance and WCI administrator Carol Ivey.

Get e-newsletters

The St. Mary’s Orphanage boys’ dormitory, administered by Father Suresh. It is located in the same compound as the Nithya Sahaya Matha Girls’ Hostel and school.

St. Mary’s Orphanage

See more homes.