The Neem Tree Trust

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The Neem Tree Trust is a UK registered charity which was founded in 2003 to help relieve poverty amongst children and young people in Tamil Nadu, South India.

The Trust principally helps to support children, at two centres in the state of Tamil Nadu, not far from the southernmost tip of India, with both money and friendship.

The first is a boys home 15 kms from the town of Tirunelveli which cares for around 80 disabled boys from the poorer sections of the rural neighbourhood.  It is the aim of the home to provide the boys with a safe, caring environment in which they will learn to become independent and self-sufficient and to acquire skills that will enable them to earn a living once they leave to return to their villages.

The boys need assistance with their vocational training and the money which The Neem Tree Trust raises in the UK each year helps to provide the necessary tools and equipment when they leave the home and strive to earn a living, often under difficult circumstances.

The second centre is St Lukes Leprosy Hospital, which is situated at Peikulam, in the Thoothukudi District of Tamil Nadu.  St Lukes is a referral centre for leprosy patients suffering from complications, which cannot be managed by general practitioners, private clinics and Government hospitals.  The Neem Tree Trust helps supports the patients as well as the healthy children of leprosy patients at St Lukes as well as sponsoring beds in the womens ward at the hospital.  Through the Trust, a number of supporters of St Lukes also sponsor the feeding programme set up at the hospital for the benefit of the in-patients and children.

Kathy Miller, the charitys founder, visits the children every year and takes with her the money raised since her last visit.  The costs of running the charity are minimal as the four Neem Tree Trustees are volunteers.