Founder/Director India Howell

India Howell has lived and worked in Tanzania since 1998. She has devoted her life to children and the poor, acting on her vision to create a home for orphaned children in a remote village in the northern highlands of Tanzania.

India founded the Tanzanian Children’s Fund in 2003 to aid children in need in Tanzania by opening her own rented home to 11 orphans. As of March 2007, there are 41 children living with her at the Children’s Village. Home for India is the Children’s Village and the children living there are her kids.

India grew up in the north shore of Long Island, New York. She attended Greenvale School in New York; Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut; Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland and received her B.A. from University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. After college she worked at E.W. Howell, Inc. before starting her own construction company. India continued to hone her managerial skills working in publishing and the hotel business in Maine and managing a commercial bakery in Boston. So how did India end up living in a traditional, rural village in Tanzania in the remote Rift Valley?

In 1998 India climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro which changed the course of her life. She fell in love with Tanzania and knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life there. She returned to the country to manage a tented safari lodge and eventually managed a safari company in Arusha.

While working in Arusha, India began volunteering for an outreach program for street children. As she became aware of the dire needs of these children, she decided to pursue her childhood dream of starting an orphanage. She rented a house in Oldeani Village in 2003, bringing with her 3 young children who had been living with her. Within weeks she attended a Village meeting and announced her intentions of opening her home for orphans in the area. Now, India is known throughout northern Tanzania as “Mama India” who has provided a home to orphaned and unwanted children; hope and employment to villagers who have never had a job; and scholarships to worthy students.

India is the first to say that she has not done this work alone. Hardworking and selfless, practical and compassionate, she inspires tremendous loyalty from friends and from those who work for her. India has found her work, her passion, and her home in Tanzania.