News And Articles
DECEMBER 2022
Dear Friends, We end the year with a deep sense of thanksgiving to God for a year of recovery from the losses of Covid and a year of growth and blessing. Our partners and friends like you supported us generously with prayers and financial support. God’s protection and presence was real every day as our work overcame significant challenges and grew a good deal. We share with you in brief summary what God has enabled us to do in 2022. 1. SCHOOLS: - Divya Shanthi High School survived the Covid year of 21-22 of mostly online classes and reduced attendance with about 25% of children dropping out of school. The new school year began in May 2022 and had record admissions taking the school numbers about 500 students. As the children struggled to recover lost ground due to two years of Covid we provided extra support to recover specialist subject teachers doing special coaching classes before and after regular school hours and on weekends. Middle and high school children had to attend an average of 18 extra hours of classes every week! we are beginning to see the results in improved performance. The Special Needs School is running at capacity with 45 children. A new feature this year is a training program for parents that has resulted in parents partnering the school in the development of these previous special children. New Lingarajapuram Community School: After a break of five years, the feeder school at New Lingarajapuram Centre reopened in June with 33 children. They came from very poor homes but have defied our expectation in doing very well specially in learning English children hardly ever miss school. 2. Vocational Training: Post Covid this program has expanded rapidly. This year we worked on training and unemployment placement. We are able to do this as we partner with the Rotary Club of Bangalore Cantonment and other organizations. Tailoring, cooking classes and sanitary pad manufacturing for women, soft skills training for the physically disabled, placed with Amazon, Shell super markets, Home based products making like candle making and baking cakes etc., for people with special needs, community health worker training and elder care training for men and women. This has been a very encouraging year for our Vocational training unit the St. James Academy. 3. Community Health and Health Centre: - This work has also grown rapidly with a team of two doctors (part-time), three nurses and one community health worker. We added a tally equipped physiotherapy unit in June with a part time experienced physiotherapist. The New Lingarajapuram health Centre has grown rapidly with our partnership with the Municipal Corporation health team. Health camps were conducted every month. Some had corporate sponsorship that enabled us to provide mediums to diabetics from low income families and spectacles for those who attended the eye camp. We are serving the following communities: Those recently declared free from Hansen’s disease (Leprosy) and living on the streets and surviving by begging. Men and women who have just recovered from T.B and need medical and nutritional support. Transgender people who live in small groups of 20-25 and earn their livelihood by begging and possibly see work. They need regular medical support, special support and counseling. Meeting the medical and other needs of these communities is in partnership with the corporation health unit we provide nutrition support to over 100 children, over 250 adults also receive nutritional support. These include, the homeless, T.B. patients and very poor families. The physiotherapy unit works with people with serious physiotherapy needs who are unable to pay for the treatment and lose employment or miss many days of work. Most are in work that is physically intensive labour. Training for carers and 8 of our staff is completed and with portable kits physiotherapy is being provided at home or in our outreach centers. Community health work in four areas covering several thousand people continues with 2500 as registered patients. Unregistered patients served are another 5000. Rehabilitation work with alcoholics was low key this year and hopefully will grow next year. The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences is ready to work with us and the municipal health team but we need to find the right person to lead this work. 4. Work with the Homeless: - Shelter for homeless elderly women in a new operation with 21 residents. They are provided shelter and cooking facilities. The medical team continues its night clinic once a week and if we find new partners and volunteers this could extend to two nights a week. There is a great need to provide shelter for homeless elderly men as also for homeless women who have just recovered from leprosy. 5. Community Work:- Our pastoral team of five leads this work increasingly drawing on Church members who received training in visiting homes, identifying needs and connecting with resources and solutions. It is the pastors who are in touch with the police and State Welfare agencies as they address, child abuse, spousal abuse, family contact, community needs are connecting people with Sate Welfare scheme. This year several hundred individuals living below poverty line (BPL) were enabled to get State health insurance cards that can be used even in private hospitals to a limit of USD 600 a year. 6. Challenges: - The main challenge was the serious health problems of Colleen and Vinay. The Divya Shanthi Community as a whole did well health wise. Parents of school children struggled to pay the school fees and it was difficult to find scholarship subsidies for the children. We were committed to ensuring children did not suffer another year unable to attend school. Our permission to receive overseas grant (FCRA) ends at the end of March 31, 2023. We need to have the security of long term permission soon. Please pray as we try to get this. 7. Thanksgiving: - We are blessed with a few generous friends who support our work financially and with purpose. There are others we give faithfully and sacrificially and also uphold our team in prayer regularly. Such support has been a great encouragement. Our partnership with Divya Shanthi Mission Support Oxford and Barnabas Fund UK is a great blessing and we are deeply grateful to our friends in both organizations and members of St. Nicholas Church Oxford for their prayers and support. We wish you all a very blessed Christmas.
OCTOBER 2022
Dear Friends, September was marked by heavy rains and flooded roads, children attended schools and medical team was stretched. MEDICAL WORK: Doctors clinics and nurse clinics in focus centres growing. Our partnership with the Municipal Corporation health team has resumed. Covid vaccines for children under 12 are available and are being administered to the children in schools in our area. A multiservice camp on our premises attracted about 400 patients, specialists in Cardiology, Diabetics, Orthopedics, Gynecology, Nephrology and dentistry treated the people. Free medicine was provided blood tests and ECG testing was also done. PARTNERSHIP WITH MUNICIPAL CORPORATION: A major new development is our partnership in an initiative to address the growing incidence of Tuberculosis (TB) in our communities. Screening was done for several hundred families. 35 TB patients who are no longer infective are “adopted” by Divya Shanthi they will be provided extra nutrition that will cost (£ 6) per month, per person for six months. The corporation will provide medicines and doctors consultations where needed. If funds are available the number of TB patients in the rehab programme adopted for support will increase to 100. We are working with the corporation team on a programme to identify and address under nourishment among primary school children in our area. We have adopted 35 children for nourishment support and hope to increase the number to 100 when funds are available. PHYSIOTHERAPY PROGRAMME WITH PACT: The Physiotherapy programme with PACT is expected to grow as we now have completed training of our staff. Our medical programme has grown double the size in the past twelve months and we need financial support urgently to sustain this growth. SCHOOL: The school completed its first term at the end of September. Absent a third of the 37 children in Std 10 are performing poorly and will likely fall the state exams in March 2023. The school is providing extra coaching to all the students and working with parents to ensure that the 10th standard children work very hard. We have completed assessment of all the children and find that two years of covid disruption measures that a majority of the children are 18 months behind in their educational progress. Addressing this is a very big challenge and we need much prayer. CHILD CARE: The residential homes are running smoothly. We are disappointed that inspite of the measures we took for the past two covid years to facilitate the educational progress of our sponsored children, a majority of them are still lagging behind, with her improved health Colleen is doing her best to get volunteer help to help our children especially in the subjects of Maths, Science, language Kannada and Hindi. We are encouraged that the children seen to be enjoying good health. CHALLENGES: We live in a changed context. The passing of an anti-convention law by our state legislative makes us Vulnerable as a Christian organization. Anyone can make a complaint that our help we offer to people in great need is motivated by our desire to convert them to the Christian faith. The law makes it nearly impossible for us to defend ourselves. We need your prayers.