Mumbai Dancer To Be Indian Face Of US NGO’s Orphan Village

Publication:Times of India Mumbai;

Date:Mar 7, 2008;

Section:Times City;

Page Number:10

City’s single dad teams up with Ranchi orphanage Mumbai Dancer To Be Indian Face Of US NGO’s Orphan Village Swati Deshpande I TNN Mumbai: He is the city’s first single male adoptive father and now he is an ambassador for what is being touted as the “first ideal family-style village for orphans’’ in India to be opened on March 16.

    Sandip Soparrkar, the dance teacher to celebrities, who executes Latin, Bollywood and ballroom moves with equal ease has been roped in, via his Madonna connection, to be the Indian face of USbased NGO Miracle Foundation’s Sooch Village in Ranchi.

    “There are lots of orphanages in India and even in Mumbai there are several which are good. I adopted Arjun last year from Bal Anand in Chembur. But it’s perhaps a rare instance that an orphanage is coming up on a 10-acre spread and is built like a little village with its own school, hospital and personalised attention to the children,’’ Soparrkar told TOI on Thursday.

    There are already about 200 orphans, mostly aged four and above, at the orphanage which is named after Nav Sooch, the Silicon Laboratories founder, in Austin, US, whose $700,000 donation paved the way for the orphanage in India. US citizen Caroline Boudreax started the Miracle Foundation Orphanages seven years ago with 25 orphans and a concept of helping one child at a time. Her dream of setting up an orphanage in India came true with Sooch’s support and that of many other “global citizens from Austin,’’ who chipped in with funds.

    The entire project has taken shape with foreign funds. Sooch, who strongly believes that good education and family support gives a child a headstart in life, and attributes his own phenomenal success at 33 to education, wants to provide the winning combination to these orphaned children. Soparrkar said there are 20 cottages to house 10 children each with one supervisor and one ‘mother’ for four children.

    The staff is mostly Indian. The school on the premises will also cater to children from nearby local villages who will get free education and food if they choose to come.’’ And to let the children learn about their religion too, there are prayer halls for Hindus, Muslims and Christians. “I have seen children attend all three prayers,’’ said Soparrkar.

    “When I started seven years ago, I wasn’t sure it would work,’’ says Boudreax on her website. She had set up the Foundation to help orphaned Indian children after a vacation in India in 2001 when she chanced upon a local orphanage whose conditions had “appalled’’ her.

    She vowed to help and in 2003 sponsored 25 children. And according to Sooch, who is of Indian origin but raised in the US, “It’s critical that everyone who wants to better themselves has the opportunity to do that.’’

    s.deshpande@timesgroup.com BRINGING A SMILE TO THEIR FACES: There are around 200 children aged four and above at the orphanage http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA4LzAzLzA3I0FyMDEwMDA=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom