Visiting cricket team reaches out to local Orphanage

Oct 25, 2009 News

The Bless the Children Home yesterday received food and toiletries from the United Charges/US Cricket team.

The orphanage was dedicated on September 27, last year, and is today the home for 17 orphans ranging from three to thirteen years old. The United Charges/United States cricket team is in Guyana to take part in the current 20/Twenty matches being held at the National Stadium.

Chairman of the United Charges/US team Ralph Tamesh shakes hands with a founder of The Bless the Children Home Shelia Surujpaul.

Chairman of the United Charges/US team and a founder of the humanitarian organisation United Charges, Ralph Tamesh, had made a donation of clothing to Joshua House on a previous visit to Guyana.

One year later he decided to make the donation to the Bless the Children Home, after learning of the need for food stuff at the orphanage from his nephew, a member of the President’s Youth Award Republic of Guyana (PYARG).

Among those present at the donation were Tamesh, Coach Sew Shivnarine, Team Manager Jameel Mohamed, Political Advisor to the President Navin Chandarpal and members of the team Everton Nelson, David Mohamed and Davindra Bishoo.

The orphanage was founded by Mr. and Mrs. Surujnauth Surujpaul.

The couple had been residing in the US for 19 years before deciding to move back to Guyana to set up the orphanage.

The building was constructed on property owned by Shelia Surujpaul at Industry, East Coast Demerara.

The couple and friends raised funds for the orphanage in the US, and it can now house 64 children.

The building is divided into two separate dorms to house the eight boys and nine girls who currently live there. The Surujpauls get funding for the orphanage from overseas donors. People in the US sponsor a child and provide that child with all that is necessary for his/her comfort.

Mrs. Surujpaul called the inspiration to build the orphanage an insight from God, and told Kaieteur News that is was on one of the trips she made back to her homeland that she discovered the need to do something about the children that roam the streets hungry and homeless.

All of the children, she said, are happy to be in their new home, and those who came from broken homes are more often than not reluctant to go back to their previous residence.

Some of the children have never attended school and all find a homely comfort within the walls of the Bless the Children Home says Mrs Surujpaul.

Mr. Surujpaul, an ordained priest, left his church in Pennsylvania, and Mrs. Surujpaul left her job as a nurse one year before retirement, to make their dream a reality.