HOME FOR DYING DESTITUTE
Who is this man? A decade or so ago, during a religious retreat this man received Gods Divine Inspiration. An Inspiration that would motivate the brotherhood, encourage volunteers to SERVE a cause to CHANGE LIVES of the UNDERPRIVILEGED. He had by then already served for 10 years with the MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY.
Do not worry about money or anything. God will help you and provide everything for you to help the poor... MOTHER TERESA. Blessed with these prophetic words began a journey on May 26, 1994, an inspired journey that continues. An Inspiration that was to be the GOOD SAMARITAN MISSION. Today well into the second decade of the second millennium, this man BROTHER PETER PAUL RAJ, and this story goes on to touch the life of more than a many disadvantaged child and adult around India, and around the world.
The mission who had humble beginnings in a one room tenement of a slum has grown slowly and steadily over the last 19 years. Touching lives, healing wounds, spelling help in the letters of LOVE, the GOOD SAMARITAN continues to leave a trail behind
At the MOTHER HOUSE at Vikhroli in Mumbai, 30 boys taken off the streets have grown into courageous young men looking forward to a future that seemed ever so bleak not so long ago. Similarly, another 30 odd boys are heading into a better life like many who lived here before them at the GYAN ASHRAM in Kalamboli in Navi Mumbai.
Close by at SILVANO NIVAS at Vikhroli, a little more than 42 once underprivileged young girls and grown up women are weaving dreams of leading a normal womans life akin to the ones who resided here before them.
Apart from the formal education being imparted at local schools and colleges, a mission center that imparts training in Information Technology, and another that trains in design and tailoring arms these young women and men to meet life on their own terms. These centers benefit not only the missions young, but also several from the slums who are less privileged.
A little over 50 destitute men once without hope have found succor in Brother Peter Paul Raj at VIJAY ASHRAM at Vikhroli, and SILVANO SHANTI ASHRAM in Kalyan. Earlier, more than over 1100 such men who were rescued in the past and recovered were housed here. The trail does not end there in Mumbai and Maharashtra.
At Mother Mary Ashram at Gulayagudem in Tamil Nadu, more than 25 young ones who the world call orphans have found a soul brother and a home, and an Information Technology Training Center. Not faraway at Nagercoil, another Information Technology Training Center takes IT Education to the underprivileged by imparting training free of costs.
The future of the Mission does not seem so bleak in Tamil Nadu with a 379 acre land at Anakarai just 35kms from Kanyakumari. BADA UNCLE (The young ones affectionately address Brother Peter Paul Raj as Bada Uncle) plans to not just house 2000 children and more, but to educate them at a state-of-the-art on site School, Library, Information Technology Center, Auditorium, complete with parks, playgrounds, a secular place of worship. Here, the beginnings of a trail blazing Self Sufficient Township seem to be imprinted in the sands of time.
DO NOT LET THEM DOWN
