KARIS Projects

Combating Generation Bondage to Prostitution
KARIS provided the initial capital and coordinated oversight for the establishment of the Ester Leadership Home where 20 Indian girls, freed from generational bondage to India's sex industry, now live, receive an education, and have a chance at a life of dignity. These girls were placed in this home by their mothers, sex workers themselves (some of whose mothers in turn were also sex workers and so on for generations). Without this home, these young girls would be pressed into prostitution at ages as early as 13. There, many would surely become infected with HIV/AIDS.

Economic Development - Micro Loans
KARIS participates in making Micro-Loans to the poor in Africa. These loans, ranging from $50-200 in U.S. dollar equivalent, are typically made to hard working women raising children orphaned by the scourge of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Loans are used to purchase business assets (examples: sewing machines, inventory, supplies, etc.) that permit these ladies to start their own businesses and become self supporting. The repayment rate of these grateful borrowers exceeds 98%.

Pre-Natal and Medical Care
KARIS supports a facility in the Central Highlands of Guatemala which provides milk and medical care to the Mayan Indians in an area that suffers from one of the highest infant mortality rates in the western hemisphere. Mothers walk for hours to bring their children for milk, medical care and health training.

Artificial Limbs For Victims of Civil War
KARIS provided and, with the aid of a skilled orthopedic surgeon, fitted 200 artificial limbs on victims of civil war in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Rebels terrorized villagers by systematically hacking off their hands and leaving them helpless, dependent, humiliated and demoralized. Victims were not able to dress or feed themselves or even care for their own basic daily sanitary needs without assistance. These people now have a sense of human dignity and many are able to engage in gainful employment.

Economic Development - Foot Bridges and Wells
KARIS helps finance the digging of wells for safe clean water in West Africa and construction of foot bridges in East Africa to provide safe access across rivers and ravines that run at flood levels for months every year and pose a grave threat to all who need to cross for access to health care and other life necessities. Without these bridges scores of people lost their lives to drowning and animal attacks.

Care For the Emotionally Challenged
KARIS supports work among mentally and emotionally challenged youth.

Medical Care
KARIS supplied medicines and health care supplies to a team of medical professionals providing care to the poorest in Togo, West Africa.

Prison Ministries
KARIS organizes and sends Prison Ministry Teams to go into prisons quarterly to encourage inmates to take responsibility for their lives, their future and their families.

Fighting Bonded Servitude
KARIS supported works combating the entrenched institution of bonded slavery in India and assisted in the resettlement of those held in bondage to free and productive self-supporting lives.

Helping Out Locally in Washington, D.C. Schools
KARIS organized a team of painters and workers who cleaned, painted and improved some of the most run-down schools in the District of Columbia and encouraged school staff, students and local residents.

Halfway House
KARIS helped organize work teams who volunteer time to renovate the Fulton House, a halfway house in Washington, DC providing rehabilitative care and career counseling to drug addicts.

Job Training and Mentoring
KARIS provided funds for the purchase of essential supplies and materials that enabled trained volunteers teach computer skills to disadvantaged youths in Southeast Washington DC and give them the opportunity to see beyond neighborhood limitations and hope for fruitful futures.

Supporting Bible Schools in Guatemala
KARIS provided necessary supplies for a Bible Institute in central Guatemala that trains local pastors many of whom walk for hours to attend classes in literacy and ministry that would otherwise be unavailable to them.