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Volume 24 No. 1 | Autumn 2014
and all people of the vicinity want to send their children to
it. Today there are about 60 students in a class and this year
we have 580 children in the school. This year the school was
upgraded to the level of High School and efforts are being
made to rebuild the school to accommodate the High
School children and the increasing number of children in
the lower classes. There is no other school in the whole of
Odisha which is meant for the children of this background.”
Fr Joseph says there is now also a child care centre attached
to the school and all the children of the colony under school
age are given a supplementary diet of milk and egg, while
school aged children are given a banana and egg every day
after school. A communal kitchen also provides three meals
a day for Leprosy patients who are not able to work. Known
as the Mercy Kitchen, its aim is to stop the patients begging
in the streets.
The SVD AUS Province, through the generosity of our
donors and benefactors, is pleased to be supporting Fr
Joseph’s current project aimed at expanding Karunalaya’s
economic capacity, to help Leprosy patients into
sustainable work.
Initiatives so far have included agricultural-based activities,
including a garden of vegetables, coconuts and fish which
are for sale and for use in the Mercy Kitchen and children’s
home. There are also established poultry sheds, which are
in very poor condition. Fr Joseph and his team hope to
renovate them.
In 1980, Karunalaya registered a cooperative to create
employment opportunities for anyone from the Colony
who would like to work, even those with disability. The main
activities carried out are weaving clothes, rope making with
coir and jute and door mat making.
“We would like to buy two mechanised spinning machines
in this project,” Fr Joseph says. “This is expected to increase
the production of coir rope by 10 times in the first year.”
Fr Joseph says the project would also include purchasing
two more hand loom spinning machines, a doormat
making frame and new flooring in the hall where the coir
rope is made.
“The present floor is rough and with broken surface and it
hurts the feet of the weavers as they do this job barefoot,”
he says. “We want to put tiles on the floor.”
On the agricultural front, Fr Joseph says the current project
will include new sheds for the poultry farm; starting a dairy
farm with a few cows to provide good milk to the patients
and the children; and installation of irrigation.
Along with the new housing to replace the buildings which
are now in poor repair, Karunalaya is also seeking to add
some computers to the high school.
Fr Joseph says he is thankful to all who provide generous
support to the work of the Karunalaya Leprosy Care
centre, allowing the vision of Fr Marian, where people
with Leprosy are treated with love, dignity and respect, to
live on and to thrive.
