2004

Bruna Colombo-Otten (Italian-British living in England and in Liechtenstein), fund-raiser and anthropologist, goes to Bangladesh in November with a Swiss organization and meets in Dhaka Ali Akkel Howlader. Ali had been working for the Swedish organization ‘Interlife’ for over 35 years taking care of disabled people. He tells Bruna about his dream of creating a home and school taking care of orphaned children with different types of disabilities that would benefit from living together, learning together, helping and supporting each other.

2005

Bruna finances Ali to start the project: they rent a property with two big and two smaller buildings with a big garden and an orchard; they house the first children and start the school and wood workshop; they organize the first cleft lip operations with a surgeon in Dhaka.

2006

Lars-Erik Wallhagen from Sweden, that has known Ali for many years, joins Bruna to help financing the home/school; Jose’-Luis Andarias from Spain, after meeting Bruna in Morocco, becomes one of her major supporter to help Ali and the children.

2007

Lars-Erik with a group of Swedish friends, Bruna and Jose’-Luis with Dinah Wiener, an English literary agent that went with them to visit Ali and the children, raise money to buy the property Bhola Garden; In March, thanks to the great help and efforts of Dinah, Bhola’s Children is registered as a UK charity.

2008

Thanks to an intensive year of successful fund-raising above all in England, but also with the help of Bay Foundation - Switzerland and private people in Liechtenstein, Italy and Spain, members of FAO, we have started to build a bigger house that in the future will allow to have fifty resident children; In four years we have organized over 100 cleft lip operations; In October BHOLAS CHILDREN FOUNDATION is officially registered in Liechtenstein as a charity No 0002.302.710-4.

2009

In March the new building is finished. Thanks to a generous donation we managed to install the new toilets and showers, pink for the girls, green for the boys. We also managed to put glasses on the windows. In June our boys and girls have moved in.