Kids with Cameras has a plan to help more children like those portrayed in Born into Brothels. With your help, we will build Hope House (Asha Niwas), a nurturing home where up to 150 children from Calcutta's red light district can come to live, learn, and grow. The children who live in Hope House will receive a free, first-rate education through high school, courtesy of the Buntain Foundation, which owns and operates 80 schools in India. The Buntain Foundation will also manage and staff the home.

Hope House will serve as a safe haven, offering support services and programs that will help these children develop the strength and skills to change their own circumstances while remaining connected to their families. Art will play a central role – as it did in the film – assisted by nature: there will be artists-in-residence and gardens to tend. A college fund is also part of the plan.The home will be designed and staffed so as to make the children feel they are living in a cluster of family homes – a far cry from the squalid rooms and chaotic conditions of the congested red light district. The idea is to develop a model "home" that can be replicated elsewhere. Studio Mumbai Architects is designing the home pro bono. Other donated services include: engineering (Price & Myers) and landscaping (Pocock Design Environment Limited).

The model for Hope House was unveiled at a special benefit dinner at Tabla restaurant on Feb. 11, 2007. The event helped bring in over $300,000 towards the purchase of land and construction of the home. We are now significantly closer to raising our target goal of $750,000 — only $200,000 to go.

If you'd like to help, please make a donation and note "Hope House".

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