India

India is a land of strange contrasts. To the international community it presents an image of a go-ahead country, with a successful and growing middle class; huge wealth; world-class hospitals, schools and universities; a massive and well-equipped military; its own space programme; a huge software industry; and no need of outside help. Yet, beneath this success story, there is another India, where 400 million people live below the official poverty line: 200 million of these exist in extreme poverty. India now has a higher incidence of childhood malnutrition than sub-Saharan Africa. Caste and religious discrimination - although illegal - remain. Often government help intended for the poor never reaches them. It is with these people – the marginalised, the neglected, people unreached by most of India’s developments over the last 40 years – that HHI works, bringing health and help to some of the poorest and most needy people of South India. HHI works primarily in the two most southerly states of India – Kerala and Tamil Nadu. We also support work in Orissa. Many people in the area are helped in all sorts of ways. Some of them are listed below. Click on the links below to find out more.