Our Children’s Home is named after Alessandro Sinatra. Alessandro, also called Ale, was born on May, 14th 1967 and died on January, 17th 2000 in a bike accident on the way to the Leonardo Da Vinci Airport, Rome. Ale loved children. For example, he had sponsored children from Macau, China. He loved the street children of Mumbai whom he used to take to the restaurants. At his unexpected death, his parents and friends came together to honor this man of great heart. They founded an association called Amici di Ale. Our Children’s Home is entirely built up of their contributions and to remember Ale, we named our Home after him.

Our house is situated in a village called Kesaragere in Kolar District in Karnataka. We are in a remote place, so that it is hard to reach us. But here, we enjoy peace and provide our children a wonderful place to grow up in harmony with Nature.

We began taking children when a child was found in front of a temple and was referred to us. Now we are already a family of 85. Our house is organized like a real family. We are providing individual care to each child. Additionally, every small child is entrusted to a bigger child. We do not have a bell and a written time table. Each child is woken up personally.

Many of our children had no childhood which others all over the world take as their birthright. We think childhood is a birthright. Therefore, we have the duty to assure that children are let to be children.

Before our children came to us, many of them lost their parents due to different diseases (mainly HIV/AIDS). Some children have just one parent (mainly the mother), who is unable to take care. Some other’s parents are in prison. For some, we don’t even know their life history. Independently of where our children come from, at Vanaprastha no caste, creed, color or gender difference is made. No religion is taught.

Our house is a simple place. And whatever resources we have, we carefully make use of them. Nevertheless greatest importance is given to the development of our children. We provide only fresh food consisting of fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, bread or rice three times a day. Additionally, we give vitamins and minerals to our children, to assure a good physical development. We do sports, especially volleyball and cricket every day in our play ground. The health condition of our children is followed by us carefully and we maintain documents for all the children to record their physical and mental development.

For the mental development of our children, we send all of them to our school. We have also college going children who come home only for the weekends. And we try to equip our children with different courses, even during their holidays. For example, we sent our college children for a two-month computer course and so each of them has a certificate on basic computer skills.

We also take care of the spiritual development of our children. Therefore we try to help the children develop a spiritual profile. We follow the Shantimarga spiritual tradition wherein everyone is taught to pray “Om Shanti Om”. We also greet each other “Shanti Om”. We do meditation and yoga regularly.

We teach our children to understand the consequences of their actions and to be responsible. We let them to be authentic and creative.

I am a Child
All the world waited for my coming
All the world watched with interest
To see what I shall become
The future hangs in the balance
For what I am.

I am a Child
You hold in your hand my destiny
You determine largely
Whether I shall succeed or fail
Give me, I pray
Train me, I beg you
That I may be a Blessing to the World

I am a Child
I have come into your world
About which I know nothing
Why I came, I know not
I am curious
I am interested.

Do you want to help one of our children? Kindly contact us.