Indian service organization with Penn State ties faces post-tsunami challenges

Jung Min Lee Penn Staters Yost, Gourley, Bhat, Leung, Lee, Vyas, McKee and Fyfe during their HOINA trip

University Park, Pa. -- In Apache it means, "God gives life"; in Nepalese, "to have not." In a tribal language in Oaxaca, Mexico, it means "heaven," and in Cantonese it means "can do." The word hoina can be found in at least eight other languages worldwide, but for Penn State students who are transformed each summer through their experiences with Homes of the Indian Nation (HOINA), the word is now synonymous with the inimitable spirit of the children and staff at the Indian orphanage.

The happiness those Penn State student volunteers have been witness to has been tempered severely by the Dec. 26 tsunami that devastated areas near HOINA, but the organization is determined to persevere and aid as many orphaned children as possible.

HOINA was established in 1972 by Penn State distinguished alumna Darlene Large ('59, art education) as a not-for-profit organization to aid needy children in India. HOINA provides medical care and education for abandoned, abused, sick, orphaned and handicapped Indian children, from infancy through adulthood. The organization maintains a girls' hostel near Chennai, India and a boys' hostel near Visakhapatnam.

Large maintains strong Penn State ties through her organization, including a program that welcomes Schreyer Honors College (SHC) students to spend a summer in India teaching HOINA children. The experience is part of a three-part program. First, during the spring semester the students take a course through the geography department called "Experiences in International Service Learning."

"Students learn about globalization and service-learning," said David Fyfe, co-instructor for the course, along with his wife, Jennifer Yost. "The general theme is 'how to make a difference in a globalized world.' This spring course also works out all of the logistical information about traveling abroad."

During the summer, the students travel to India for the second part of the SHC program and spend two to three weeks volunteering in the HOINA orphanages. Upon return, they participate in a follow-up course to reflect on their experiences and try to raise money and/or awareness about HOINA, Fyfe said.

In June and July of this past summer, eight Penn State undergraduate students visited HOINA's hostels in India as part of this program.

"The purpose of our trip was to make a difference around the world and to do service work at the orphanages," said Jung Min Lee, Penn State Schreyer Honors scholar and an undergraduate biology major. Lee was accompanied by other Penn State undergraduates: Zach Reitman, Kedar Shah, Andrea Leung, Deepa Bhat, Joanna McKee, Sejal Vyas and Wendy Gourley. Fyfe and Yost also made the trip to help and advise the students throughout the experience.

"Before we went to India, all of us enthusiastically learned about the various aspects of India and the HOINA hostels," said Lee. "However, being in the India was much more interesting and exciting than expected."

In contrast to the chaotic, bustling streets of highly populated towns through which the students traveled before arriving at the girls' hostel in Chennai, Lee and her companions found hostel life punctuated with the friendliness of the HOINA children.

"To just see the situation of those living on the streets from a distance would lead to discouragement about the seemingly inevitable and dismal existence doomed for so many," McKee said in a story she wrote for HOINA. "However, inside the walls of the HOINA homes, I discovered something foreign to the majority of those living outside — hope."

Large regards the SHC students who come to help her each summer as "gift" from the University.

"Each year, the students seem to be more wonderful," said Large. "They teach things like art, music, pollution control, Spanish and Japanese, and they play with the children -- indoor games and outdoor, basketball and volleyball. Everyone seems to have a great time of it. We have a joyous experience learning about one another's culture."

The next group of Penn State students to travel to HOINA will provide vital assistance as Large and her staff deal with the aftermath of the tsunami that has left countless children without parents. Already, Large is being asked to take in 400 children — far too many for the organization to accommodate. Currently, the HOINA staff are putting in 19-hour days, building beds and a new dorm with hopes that their efforts will provide reprieve for some tsunami survivors.

"We are planning on taking another group of Penn State students to India this summer," said Fyfe. "We have been in contact with Darlene, and she is currently in India making daily trips to the fishing villages to help in any way she can. I only wish that we could go sooner to be a part of the relief efforts when they are most needed."

Despite the challenges that face her, Large has remained committed to her mission and vision and is thankful that HOINA will continue to make a difference in the lives of so many.

Large's outstanding work has been recognized by Penn State with a 1982 Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest award that the University bestows upon its alumni. In 1986, she also received a Penn State College of Education Award. In addition, Rotary International named Large as a prestigious Paul Harris Fellow in 1992, and the South Asian Musculo Skeletal Medical Society awarded Large a lifetime achievement award for her work among physically challenged children in 2002.

The Indian government and police have called Large their "Junior Mother Theresa," a title with which she's not comfortable but, no doubt, indicates the level of regard her work has garnered. Large — who prefers the title "Mom," which is how the children of HOINA lovingly refer to her — credits her family and her faith with providing the foundation on which she's build HOINA.

"My mother taught me to help the poor, and my father taught me to love all sorts of people, no matter their status in life, their religion or their color," said Large. "Producing successful adults for the world is the right thing to do."

And producing successful adults through HOINA is exactly what Large and her staff have done. Two of the children who lived and learned at HOINA are now teachers themselves — one a classical dance teacher and the other an art teacher who will be appointed the new housefather at HOINA's boys' home this month. HOINA also boasts a major in the Indian army and several former students who have gone on to earn master's degrees.

For more information about HOINA, visit http://www.hoina.org

To learn more about Schreyer Honors College, go to http://www.scholars.psu.edu/