OGN is for children ranging from 6 months to 5 year old. Before the services are offered to those who come for help, their homes and surrounding are completely and thoroughly inspected to be sure that the ones requesting help are those who really need help. OGN is for children who are suffering from malnutrition as the death rate for children under the age of 5 is very high. OGN serves those economically and socially deprived groups of people who do not have time to think or put their minds to anything but arranging for money to feed their families.
It belongs to children like Laxmi (Picture: before after ), who now studies in OGN and is sure to be a bright star in the future.
It belongs to children like Sunil, whose mother and father are rag pickers, who live in a tin shack below the 'Kalopool bridge' and have a 4X5 meter room where hygienic food, family structure and surveillance is mostly non-existant.
It belongs to children like Ananta (Picture before after); whose age is not more than 11 months. Due to his severe cough and chest congestion, he has to leave the warmth of his mother's bosom and lap as she is compelled to go for work, not out of pleasure but out of compulsion and need.
It belongs to children like Dipesh whose mother works as a daily wage laborer and has two children, whose father had gone to
It belongs to children like Salina, whose mother is compelled to work as a house-maid starting at 7 A.M. and is hoping not to repeat the same story of Laxmi.
Who is Bina 'Didi'?
Bina Basnet (also called 'Bina Didi') is a lovingly woman who is the spine behind the dreaming, visualizing, and ultimately the founding of Orchid Garden Nepal. Friends and family describe her as a modest, simple person with a heart of gold.
Prior to founding OGN, Bina worked for 7 years at the non-governmental orphanage Bal Mandir in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Her basic inspiration has been her personal experience at Bal Mandir where mothers have tearfully left their children, not because they did not love their child, but because they were unable to care for them while they worked. Where children clung to the corners of their mother's shawl pleading in their own way, an innocent way of saying, 'Please don't go'. Women would tell her that they cannot take care of their little ones as their husbands or so called fathers are alcoholics or have married again since they were unable to give birth to a male child. As told by her mother, "when Bina was 8 years old, she used to steal rice or cooked food from the house to feed children who were in the streets."
She is an example of someone who can be described as being both a mother and a woman. She is not someone who has an abundant bank balance. She does not take a profit from OGN. She is a person who can bring tears to your eyes and lumps in your throats, just because of how genuine she is, with her sincerity towards her dream and how she relates the spine chilling conditions of the children who come here.
OGN is located in Kalopul in Kathmandu, Nepal. There is uncountable need in and around Kathmandu where such centers are really needed. In the future OGN plans to open similar centers in other locations.