About Help Children India
Help Children India is a Christian ministry focused on caring for children in southeastern India through a children’s home, an English-medium school, and outreach among children living in nearby slum communities.
This work is carried out through International Sanctuary Ministries in partnership with trusted local leaders who serve children and families with compassion, consistency, and faith.
Who We Are
Help Children India is a ministry initiative of Sanctuary Ministries, a Christian nonprofit organization engaged in a broad range of gospel-centered work in India.
Alongside caring for children, the ministry also supports widows and Christians with leprosy, equips local preachers and evangelists, distributes Bibles, helps build and repair church buildings, provides clean water through village wells, and responds to urgent needs during times of crisis.
Help Children India represents the child-focused expression of this larger mission.
The work is carried out through long-standing relationships with trusted local Christian leaders in southeastern India who serve faithfully within their own communities. These relationships allow the ministry to remain personal, consistent, and rooted in genuine care rather than short-term projects.
The Story Behind Help Children India
How Sanctuary Ministries Began
Sanctuary Ministries began in 2005 (then known as Sanctuary Home for Children) when a woman named Amanda connected with Isaac, an evangelist serving in southeastern India.
After learning about the needs facing children in his community, she gathered support from family, friends, and her church congregation in the United States to help care for a small group of children.
The work began simply.
Five children came to live in Isaac’s home with him and his wife, Mary Margaret.
What started as an act of compassion quickly became something more as others joined in supporting the effort, allowing the children’s home to grow year by year.
As God opened new opportunities, the work began to expand beyond the children’s home
Poor widows — often outcasts within society — needed care, so we began helping widows. We also began supporting a group of Christians living with leprosy.
Villages lacked clean water, which led to drilling water wells near church buildings. These wells provided free water for communities while also opening doors for relationships and gospel conversations.
We began supporting preachers and full-time evangelists in their work, distributed Bibles, and helped local congregations build or repair church buildings.
The ministry also adopted a nearby slum area, providing meals and informal education to children who otherwise would not attend school. During times of crisis, including seasons of flooding, additional support was provided as needs arose.
What began as one woman's desire to help a few children gradually grew into a broader mission — helping orphans and widows in their distress while sharing the gospel and the love of Christ in India.
Yet caring for children has always remained the foundation of the work and is the purpose behind the Help Children India initiative.
In time, the children’s home expanded beyond what the original property could sustain.
When government regulations made continued operation uncertain, a timely donation made it possible to move to a new five-acre campus where dedicated buildings could be constructed for the children. This provision allowed the ministry to continue caring for children with stability and confidence for the future.
This new campus would soon open the door to an unexpected next step in the ministry’s story.
A New Season: Education
Our children come to us through long-standing relationships with local church congregations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
We rely on ministers from the villages, who know the circumstances of the families in the area, to recommend children to our children's home.
Some of these kids are true orphans, while others have one living parent unable to care for them. They come from families living in deep poverty, often neglected, abused, or malnourished.
Children in these situations would most likely not attend school anywhere, but would spend their days scavenging items to sell, wandering the streets, or working to help their families survive rather than receiving an education.
From the beginning, when these children come under our care, education has played an important role, in hopes that it can lead to a better life in the future for them.
For many years, the children attended local public schools while living under the daily care and structure provided through the ministry. However, we have long known that the public schools available to children from lower-caste communities were often underfunded and limited when compared to upper-caste schools or private schools — opportunities these children would never realistically have.
For several years, the ministry had prayed about providing education directly for the children.
In 2024, that possibility became real when Isaac obtained government approval to open a small accredited elementary school on the children’s home campus, using classrooms created within the girls’ dormitory building.
Moving forward required faith, as there was no clear plan for how the school would be sustained, but it was a step the ministry believed God was leading them to take.
The goal is not simply to replace public schooling, but to provide something better.
Classes are taught in English, creating opportunities that most of these children would never otherwise have.
Education of this kind is normally available only through private schools requiring tuition, which would be impossible for the families these children come from. The school is meant to equip them for real opportunities as they eventually leave us and begin life as adults.
As the elementary school began operating, another opportunity quickly followed.
Approval was received to expand the school to include secondary grades. We were blessed to receive a large donation for a new building designed to house classrooms on the ground floor and a boys’ dormitory above. This represents the next step in strengthening both the children’s home and the school for the future.
Now the school is operating. The next step is to sustain it.
Monthly expenses such as teacher salaries, electricity, supplies, and administration must be met so that the children can continue receiving consistent education. The ministry has taken this step in faith and continues trusting God to provide what is needed.
Outreach to Children in Slum Communities
In nearby slum communities, daily life for many children looks very different from life on the children’s home campus.
In their struggle to survive, most families don't send their children to the free public schools. Instead, many are sent out early each morning to search through trash heaps, work alongside family members, or find whatever small income they can contribute to help their households survive.
Food is scarce, and many children suffer malnutrition. Education is not a priority, and childhood responsibilities begin early.
When the children return in the afternoon from their chores, ministry staff gather them together for teaching and a shared meal.
Teachers provide basic education in an informal classroom setting, while workers from the ministry prepare and distribute food for the children.
For many, this time of learning and eating together is the only structured instruction they receive and the most dependable meal they will have.
For now, these gatherings take place about ten times each month, depending on available resources. The desire is to meet more often, but the frequency is limited by current support. Each gathering provides both food and instruction for children who would otherwise go without either.
Through this outreach, the ministry builds ongoing relationships with children and families in the community. Though the gatherings are modest, they provide food, teaching, and a consistent place for children to come together.
As support grows, the ministry hopes to expand this work and serve additional slum communities.
