The Learning Tea

Founder, Katrell Christie

While it’s not uncommon for people to find a new perspective while traveling, Candler Park resident and Dr. Bombay’s Underwater Tea Party shop owner Katrell Christie found herself in India during Summer 2009 with a growing new purpose and a strong determination to help better the lives of the children she’d met while spending time at both a Darjeeling orphanage and a elementary school, one of the oldest schools in Darjeeling.

 For these Darjeeling children living in poverty, education is simply the only method of rising beyond their situation, which in most cases is dire.

Darjeeling is located at the base of the Himalayas

Darjeeling is world famous for its beautiful tea gardens and flavorful teas, but it harbors a darker side as the region’s hub for forced labor and sex exploitation, as well as child trafficking and child labor. Without education, young girls are forced into prostitution in the area, or even transported to work in brothels in other regions of India when they leave orphanages at 16 or 17, with no viable alternatives in the area without a university education.

100% of the profits from The Learning Tea will fund several projects for these children.

6 of our 11 scholars

Katrell committed herself in 2010 to fully fund the education of three orphan girls at a nearby Darjeeling university; for $800, each girl can receive one year of university education, room and board, food, and clothing; empowering them towards a much brighter future than the alternative available for the women that have left the orphanage before them. No girl from the orphanage has previously ever had the opportunity to attend higher education.

It takes so little financially to make a huge difference in the life of these children. The Learning Tea is simply a catalyst for change, one cup at a time shaping their lives towards a much brighter future!