Tea Guest House and Documentation Centre

A tea guest house and documentation centre is being built at the former student hostel ground in Rangapara (Assam). There should be the opportunity to get to know the cooperative tea gardens and the concept of social tea. Retrained tea workers run the house, which is open to tourists. Training courses and smaller conferences can also be held in the building.

The building was reopened in 2021 after an extensive renovation and is intended to provide information about economic and social conditions in tea cultivation, to educate about human rights violations in India, to promote sustainable tourism and thus to bring cultures into dialogue.

At regular intervals, joint workshops with Indian and German youth groups will take place via video conference. The aim of the workshops is to meet, understand each other and experience each other. Similarities and differences of the young people can be made tangible and discussed. In this way, the young people learn tolerance and acceptance, as well as the basics of intercultural communication.

Originally, the building was built in 2010 in Rangapara, as a hostel for disadvantaged children from tea worker families. The children should be accommodated in the hostel during the week to be able to go to an English Medium School.
The project was run by the Assam Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) and promoted and financed by the Nordkirche (Evangelical Cherry in Northern Germany).
Meanwhile, there is a new English Medium School near the community, which is why the hostel project has been moved to the AELC campus, so that the children can be accommodated closer to their families and better integrated and cared for by the community. See project "Hostel in Assam".

The old hostel building is now to be converted so that it is accessible to more people and can be used for further projects. Rangapara is well connected in terms of transport (in contrast to most tea gardens), so it offers itself as a guest house for project visitors and as a venue for workshops.

The tea guest house will have four guest rooms including bathrooms (in Western style), some with balcony and view of a tea plantation. The house is easily accessible via Rangapara Station and is open to individual visitors and groups.

The guest house has a kitchen where the team prepares the Indian-style food fresh every day if necessary, as well as its own garden, where some food is grown itself.

You can send a booking request via kontakt@mandelzweig-projekthilfe.de. You will get a contact person who is familiar with the area around Rangapara and will help you organize your trip.

In addition to the endless tea gardens, Assam offers many other interesting destinations, such as the Kaziranga National Park. In cooperation with our project partners on site, our visitors have a direct insight into the culture and society and are always well looked after.

The project is partly financed by "IP Dynamics GmbH", "Brot für die Welt" and the association "andereZeiten e.V.".

The donations will be used for the expansion of the guest house and the compilation and exhibition of the documentation.
Subsequently, the tea house will finance itself with the help of catering for tourists and the rental for seminars and workshops.

For the start of the project we ask for further donations!