Commitment
Brand Stand directs funds from the sale of our Organic Meltdown Indian Spice chocolate bars to the Happy Children’s Home, India. (Organic Meltdown, www.organicmeltdown.com).
Their passion for helping children in need is our inspiration.


Story
While crafting Organic Meltdown’s Indian Spice organic dark chocolate, we needed to discover the source of India’s finest ingredients. While travelling through the rolling Cardamom Hills of Kerala, India, we soon discovered that even beautiful areas can have underlying social challenges that need to be addressed.
There are an estimated 18 million children in India for whom the street has become home.

These children are forced to survive on their own, often in some of the most dangerous environments in the country. Children as young as five work as low-paid vendors or porters, or scratch a living by picking over waste dumps, looking for anything to sell or eat. Many are forced into compromising situations, including prostitution.

Although some of these children have irregular contact with their families, others are completely abandoned, orphaned or are runaways. Abuse, neglect, deprivation, malnutrition, and exploitation are rampant and they have little or no access to medical care. Most become the victims of easily prevented diseases such as tuberculosis, polio and measles.
There are several outstanding groups that are fighting to turn the tide on childhood poverty in the Kerala state of India. One of the best establishments that we encountered is the Happy Children’s Home which was set up in June 2005 just outside the tourist area of Kovalam, Kerala, in Southern India.

The children who live at the Happy Children’s Home are given the spirit of a family environment and we help with the physical, mental, emotional and social development of the children, while nurturing individual growth and promoting community values.

The aim is to help these underprivileged children attain economic independence as they approach adulthood and to provide them with the means for a positive integration into society with a sense of dignity and self-worth, belonging, and a desire to continue serving their communities.


Since opening in 2005, the Happy Children’s home has become home to many children between the ages of six and fifteen, all from various backgrounds but each with one thing in common: without the home’s support, they very well would be living on the street.

The Happy Children’s Home has big plans and we aim to help them. Because space is limited in the home, they have established a long-term expansion program to grow their home and thus bring more children into the organization on a full-time basis.

For other abandoned children in their region, they are also planning a broader outreach project to help other children who don’t live at the home by providing a weekly drop-in centre where young children can come to get a meal, some basic medical care, a bath and some academic help.

Finally, they are beginning to address the need for similar services in the wider area, including in urban areas where services for these children are scarce.


Brand Stand – “Brands that Stand for Something”, including the need to help children in the state of Kerala, India, where we find our spices for Organic Meltdown Indian Spice dark chocolate.
Contributor: Paul Disney, March 2008

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