Dear Friends,
As we approach Christmas, I had hoped to be able to say that we have completed negotiations to pass over our buildings in Mavelikara to the Marthoma Church.
Things have progressed but there are still minor difficulties to overcome mainly centred on tax issues. We still hope to pass the final hurdles within two or three months.
However, in spite of the issues we have needed to solve we do so because ownership of the 3 buildings and almost an acre of land is with us.
This is so important. Without intending criticism many charities buy land and/or erect buildings that in effect become the property of the recipients. Well meaning donors have no say in what happens in later years, as land and buildings increase in value. We have seen examples first hand of recipients of such donations having substantial personal benefit in the longer term.
This was the prime reason for registering our Trust in India. The Mavelikara project was built to help children and families after the Tsunami and to provide better accommodation for our boys and girls homes that were until then in rented buildings. It provided a substantial and beneficial home for several hundred children for over 10 years, but it is now no longer needed. We still run small projects, mainly self help groups, for local women and fishing communities, but do not need large buildings to do so.
A lot of options were examined, as previously reported, with selling particularly investigated as the land had increased in value. However, there would have been extensive tax, registration, agents and auditors fees that would have taken a lot of the “profits”. Also the money that was donated for that project was given for our ongoing service work. I am therefore now reluctant to go for a straight sale which would have to be commercial - and would have taken a good year or so anyway!
Starting new projects was briefly considered. This is really not needed in that area that had been devastated by the Tsnami but is now flourishing, so we began to look for another organisation that would continue our work with the same emphasis on caring for the poorest.
The answer came in two meetings I had in London, first with the most Senior Bishop in the Marthoma Church - the main (Christian) church in Kerala. This was followed a few weeks later with another London visit to the Marthoma area Bishop who has Mavelikara under his care (both in UK when we needed them to be!)
They are, as already reported, more than happy to take over our work ( with certain stipulations from us), and are already suggesting a long term care home for destitute elderly. They would / will also provide finance needed to support our existing ongoing Kerala work.
I went to India last month to meet both Bishops again, plus local clergy as we seek the correct path to move forward. See front cover photo.
This means that we are passing on our work to the church who are in a much better position to effectively use the premises. This is so important and those who contributed to those buildings will know that the work we started will continue for many years to come and will never “belong” to an individual (or group of) but will remain in service. This should happen at the end of March!
Those meetings/negotiations took much of the time I was in India but I did get through to Madurai which has been and will continue to be the main hub of our work.
Time in the slum was limited but I was with our elders over a lunch period, met all of our children and made a brief visit to the leprosy colony. Most of my time was spent at the cancer hospital where our work with the poorest children continues to be so important. We have undoubtedly saved lives by providing medications essential for treatment but unavailable in the hospital (we buy direct from a wholesaler.) This with our essential food bags are underpinned by the essential emotional support our staff offer to parents. I was able to contribute to this - sitting with a small group of mothers expressing (through tears); their concern for their daughters who were losing most of their hair during chemotherapy, by sharing photos of my own family member before treatment and after.
The families we help come from city slums or drought affected rural villages. The hospital is almost the only option for those who will be unable to access the specialist hospitals in Chennai or Trivandrum, though we have funded some bone marrow treatments at these centres. Staff are excellent but facilities basic, this was summarised for me by a visit to the ward that children will be moved to on reaching 13 years. It is male and female with barely a foot between beds which hold not only patients but also family support members. The heat was overwhelming. I met a 13 year old girl with her widowed mother, both malnourished. Mother can’t leave her daughter in those conditions to go out for food - she doesn’t have money anyway and doesn’t know how they will get back to their village if her daughter recovers or completes treatment. One of many (yes, we are helping them.)
The main children’s ward is overcrowded with two children having chemo lying on the floor. The staff are really good and families try to help each other. A birthday was being celebrated during my visit. It is perhaps important to say here that our work is not just ad hoc, but permitted under government and hospital authorities licence. Our own staff are there daily and have an important role, not just in providing daily food bags but also essential transport to and from treatment, many could not get to treatment without our ambulance support. As already mentioned accessing medical resources from outside the hospital is another essential role. If we didn’t do it some treatments would not happen..
The other projects
Other projects are continuing really well. Several of our children are taking final school exams - equivalent to our GCSE’s and ALL will be moving to apprenticeships or higher education. We have several children on degree courses now and virtually all of them move on within our groups to be volunteers. A reminder that these are all children from the slum where we base our work having been brought up in homes with no electricity, running water or toilets.
At the other end our younger children all attend regularly and are a delight to see!
Our elders still rely on our daily cooked lunch, which happens over two sittings in our concrete block in the slum. The promised toilets have never happened because of the continuing drought but the slum clearance programme we expected will not now happen, however, some families have now been given ownership of the “land” that their shacks have been built on (average 10 by 6 feet) so that if they can afford it they can erect a more permanent home, unlikely for our elders but a clear sign that any thought of moving the residents will not happen.
Our leprosy friends continue in their restricted environment, sadly 2 of our long term friends have died, but we still help 29 families.
Muthukumar’s visit
We are bringing Muthukumar to the U.K. at the end of November for a 2 week visit. He hopes to meet as many of you as possible.
We will be having coffee in St. Stephen’s Church coffee area - next to Marks and Spencer on Monday mornings 27th November and 4th December and Saturday 9th December between 10 - 12. He would love to meet anyone who can come! His programme is developing, one event being at Blofield Church on December 10th (11am service followed by a glass of wine) when I will be celebrating 40 years of church service.
Our work is obviously evolving and hopefully by the next report we will have more settled plans to report as we look at the longer term and what we can realistically achieve. Obviously we are thinking about the future as we always have been. I return in March which will mark 34 years of the Trust’s existence during which a lot of lessons have been learnt but also thousands of lives helped or touched thanks to your support. India of course has also changed a lot (I’ve deliberately not mentioned moon rockets) but many live still without basic necessities and they are the ones we concentrate on. Our sincere thanks to you all for such wonderful support, we would not have reached this point without you. We have always and will continue to use funds entrusted to us to help the poorest and to continue to offer unconditional love.
Christmas greetings from me, our trustees Paula and Jo and Muthukumar, Karthik and Ranjith in India.
