Christel DeHaan

Founder

Photo: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA)

Christel DeHaan is the founder of Christel House India (2000)[1], an Indian non-profit working on education and women & children from Bengaluru.

Christel DeHaan was a German-American businesswoman and philanthropist who founded Christel House International, a network of schools for children from low-income families. She died on 6 June 2020 in Indianapolis at the age of 77.

Christel House India, which she established in Bangalore in 2001 and later extended to Naya Raipur in Chhattisgarh, provides schooling together with nutrition, health care, family support and post-school career guidance to children from poor households.

Early life and education

DeHaan was born on 20 October 1942 in Nördlingen, Bavaria, in Germany. She moved to the United Kingdom at the age of sixteen to work as a nanny and emigrated to Indiana in the United States at the age of twenty.

Career

In 1974 DeHaan co-founded Resort Condominiums International (RCI), a timeshare exchange company, with her then husband Jon DeHaan. She took over the running of the business after he suffered a heart attack in 1979, acquired full ownership following their divorce in 1987, and sold the company in the mid-1990s in a deal reported at hundreds of millions of dollars. Under her leadership RCI operated in dozens of countries.

After selling RCI, DeHaan worked with orphaned and abandoned children in Mexico City, an experience she credited with redirecting her attention to education. She opened the first Christel House in Mexico City in 1998 and went on to establish schools in India, South Africa and the United States. She gave a reported 220 million dollars to Christel House International.

Christel House India opened in Bangalore in 2001. A second Indian campus was later opened at Naya Raipur in Chhattisgarh. The model combines schooling from the early years through to secondary level with meals, health care, counselling, family support and a college and careers programme that continues to follow students after they leave.[2][3][4][5]

Christel House India

Christel House India has worked since 2001 to give underserved children a comprehensive support system that follows each student for up to eighteen years, including five years beyond Grade 12. Its free, whole-child model combines academics, arts, sports and technology with nutrition and healthcare, counselling and mentoring, safe transport, character development, career guidance, scholarships for undergraduate study, internships and job placement, plus family support and community outreach. It runs learning centres in Bengaluru and at Atal Nagar near Raipur.

Christel House India reports the following, on its own site: