About Us
What We Do
Agape AIDS Orphan care is focused on caring for the poorest of the poor - destitute children from the weakest segments of society that are orphaned by AIDS - from cradle to college. We raise them with love, provide them with an education and help them become productive individuals.
Every year an unknown number of children are orphaned when their parents die from AIDS in India, and they are left with no one to look after them. For those that are HIV+, 80% of them will die before their fifth birthday if not treated.
We take these children in and give them a home, care for them, and provide medical care and an education in our school that gives them a promising future.
Our Story
In 2003, Lynne Guhman Voggu of Massachusetts, founded Agape AIDS Orphan Care in Hyderabad, India. She began in a rented room with six HIV+ children she found abandoned on the streets. As the number of children she cared for grew, she established additional homes and hired staff to help care for the children, and got the children the medical care they needed. When they were old enough to go to school, she found that AIDS orphans were not welcome at most government schools, so she founded Agape’s own school.
Agape now cares for nearly 250 orphans, all of whom have lost parents to AIDS and half of whom are HIV+. Lynne and her son James are committed to Agape AIDS Orphan care and life in Hyderabad. The work that everyone at Agape does for the children is only possible with the support of our donors and sponsors.
The Agape Model
Our model is very simple: children are at the center of everything we do--and we care for them from cradle to college.
OUR DORMITORIES - Our dormitories are segregated by sex, HIV status and age.
OUR SCHOOL - We believe strongly in education, and the importance of providing our children with the skills and capabilities to help them succeed in life. We operate our own school in a rented four-story building, with 34 classrooms ranging from kindergarten through high school (10th class). This allows us to provide a quality education to all of our children--including those who are HIV+, and therefore would not be accepted in most local schools.
Classes are provided in both English and Telugu, the local language, to accommodate children of various ages, educational backgrounds and language skills. A Bridge program is offered to those children who are older and haven’t had the benefit of an education prior to Agape. After two years in our Bridge program, an older child can be mainstreamed into the 6th grade and continue their education in English. In India, an education in English is extremely valuable and helps to ensure a secure future.