In 2008, Tessa Henwood-Mitchell, a 21-year-old Social Work and International Studies student at the University of South Australia, went to Bolivia through Projects Abroad to volunteer at an orphanage for 4 months as part of her degree. After a few weeks of working at this orphanage and taking note of the lack of funds, resources, and opportunities available not only to the children she’d been working with, but to all disadvantaged children in Bolivia, she made the decision to initiate an organisation to raise funds and implement development projects with the Bolivian population. After returning from this trip in December 2008, Tessa began the process of establishing Tia International Aid, which was officially born in February 2009.