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Project Hope is a child-sponsorship program launched by Horizons Community church of Lincoln Nebraska in support of an orphanage in India by the name of “Pratheeksha”. Pratheeksha, which means “Hope” in the language of Tamil, was founded by Sr. Jessy Alex . The partnership of Horizons with Pratheeksha was started by Julie Martin, a former member of Horizons. In the summer of 2002 Julie met Sr. Jessy on a train while traveling in Europe and began emailing and phoning Sr. Jessy. After two years of this growing relationship Project Hope was proposed and accepted by Horizons and Julie traveled to India to see the orphanage and assess what Project Hope needed to do. This assessment led to the Child-Sponsorship program which began in 2005 and now supports the clothing, food, shelter, and schooling for all 50 of the orphans in the village of Samayapuram. In January 2006 six more members of Horizons traveled to India. Kay and Rusty Holt being two of the members who experienced Pratheeksha first-hand now direct Project Hope and former director Julie Martin has begun a separate non-profit to tend to future building projects and a more broad scope of needs (For more information on this non-profit visit www.wecareofindia.org). It is through Horizons’ partnership with Pratheeksha that each child has a family to write home to, a face that cares about them and the security to know that all their needs will be taken care of!
Pratheeksha orphanage began in 1994 as a result of the dreams of Sr. Jessy Alex. It was her desire to serve the rejected children in villages surrounding the city of Trichy. Sr. Jessy perceived a great unfilled need in the villages where she found many little girl children abandoned or rejected. Some of them are orphaned, others have poverty-stricken families who cannot
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