A British charity, which works to help disadvantaged young people in remote areas of India, is to auction a rare bottle of Scotch whisky to raise funds for a school and home for physically and mentally challenged children in Ramnagar, Uttarakhand.
The Lotus Flower Trust, which runs more than a dozen projects in various parts of India, hopes to raise enough funds through the auction next month to replace the school's existing mud building with a concrete structure.
The minimum asking price for the 55-year-old Glenfiddich single malt whisky is £40,000.
Only 11 bottles — named after Janet Sheed Roberts, granddaughter of the founder of the Glenfiddich distillery William Grant — will be released to mark her 110th birthday.
Changing lives
According to John Hunt, chief executive of the Lotus Flower Trust and an old India hand, its vision is to help “change the lives” of children in remote and impoverished communities in India by providing educational facilities.
“A young Chakma girl in the jungles of the Namdapha Rain Forest, Arunachal Pradesh, once said to me that the only solution to breaking out of poverty was ‘Education, Education, Education'. Lotus Flower Trust wants to give children that opportunity. Our plan over the next five years is to build schools, homes and orphanages to provide a better life for some very poor, but deserving young people,” he says.
