Holly Branson, daughter of Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin group and one of UK’s richest businessman, along with her husband Freddie Andrews spent a few pleasant hours in Lai, a village 15 km from Udaipur on 14^th February. Holly was on her Charity Tour in Rajasthan.

According to sources, Holly was invited by a local NGO ‘Bal Seva Sansthan’ to Lai village to meet villagers and to know about developments going in Lai.

Shiv Singh Sisodia, resident of Lai village of Kaya Panchayat told UT that “Holly was accompanied by her husband and few friends; she visited the only school of the village and talked with students. She also took part in a Holi celebration.”

Holly has donated 5 goats to each family and also presented sweets and gifts to school children at Lai.

According to national media sources, Holly also adopted a village of Kurabad, as the patron of Free the Children, an organization which aim to free children from poverty and exploitation under their program ‘Adopt a Village’.

Holly is a medical doctor by profession and manages her father’s business venture Virgin Healthcare. She also actively works with several NGOs, mainly with Virgin Atlantic which has collaborated with ‘Free the Children’ and the Travel Foundation organization for charity cause.

The ‘Free the Children’ team implements ‘Adopt a Village’ program in rural and marginalized areas in India, Kenya, China, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Ecuador and Nicaragua. Designed to meet the basic needs of developing communities and eliminate the obstacles preventing children from accessing education, Adopt a Village is made up of four pillars crucial to lifting communities from poverty: education, alternative income, health care, and water and sanitation.

Building a healthy community through the ‘Adopt a Village’ model is like building the framework of a house. Each pillar provides crucial support, without which the whole thing would eventually crumble. The Adopt a Village four pillars for community development are all based on the idea that no problem and no solution stands alone.

report and photos by Sohail Khan