The first and immediate priority for Homes of Hope India-US was to provide buildings to house the abandoned, neglected and orphaned girls rescued by the Salesian sisters, these street children who were then crowded together, sleeping on concrete floors in substandard living conditions because that was all the sisters could afford. Some 400 girls are now in our orphanages, out of the reach of predators and sex traffickers, living in a healthy environment and attending school. We have assisted in the construction of three orphanages, in Kochi, Secunderabad and Maradiyur and will continue to support the orphanages with volunteers, medicines, and needed items.

We soon realized that, while providing a safe home for the orphan girls was a priority, we could not stop there. A good education was essential if they were to go on to a productive life once beyond our care. Therefore, Homes of Hope has provided computers, LCDs, language labs and scholarships to ensure the best possible educational experience for the 20,000 children and young adults in our 18 schools. We educate boys and girls from Pre-K through junior college and vocational training. We are working to further transform the schools through major, multi-year foundation funding, which will provide both the expertise and technology to completely re-orient the schools from rote memorization of subject matter to an inquiry-based and critical thinking model.

Story: Laura’s life started sadly. At the age of six she ran away from home in Andra Pradesh, from a mother who beat her and threatened to kill her. She somehow got on a train and got off at Kochi. We found her at the train station, confused and frightened, and a better life was a about to begin. Laura was comforted, introduced to the other children and enrolled in schools. In a matter of weeks, she was an entirely different child. She was educated in our schools, eventually receiving business and computer training. She got a job as a secretary/receptionist, and was able to support herself. Through an ad she and the sisters posted on Matrimony.com, she found and married a hard-working young man, Cletus. They will soon have a baby.

Surrounding our 32 locations throughout South India are thousands upon thousands of families living in dire poverty. Many of the children in our schools come from these families. Single women with children are the most vulnerable, often abandoned by alcoholic husbands and shunned by their families for a variety of reasons: having a child out of wedlock or merely having girl children, itself, sadly, a stigma.

We could not avoid the needs of these impoverished families, in fact we welcome the opportunity to work with them to stabilize their lives and set them on a path to a productive future.

This means gathering the women into support groups, offering microloans for small businesses, providing (through loans repaid over time) water purifiers, smoke-reducing cooking stoves, and solar lights for their homes. We also train the sisters and identified local leaders in community development, leadership and entrepreneurial techniques.

Story: In Maradiyur, the sisters gathered poor women into support groups. Each woman contributes a small amount of money (the equivalent of .50) each week. The money is used for small loans or buying such household items as detergent in bulk, so as to lower the price. Each group wears distinctive saris, a symbol of their unity and a source of pride.

A group leader, in her distinctive sari, went to the city to open a bank account for the group. She came back, tears in her eyes. “I was always looked down upon when I went to that bank. Who was I, but a poor woman, with no money? I was never invited so much as to sit down when I went before. This time, I was asked into president’s office and served tea.”

Such is the new-found dignity and hope that is now theirs.

What does Homes of Hope India-US mean by “Needs Driven and Talent Responsive?”

Needs driven – we determine the most critical needs among our schools and orphanages, whatever prevents us from offering the best opportunities for our children and poor families to live productive, healthy lives. We then meet those needs through a combination of raising funds, obtaining grants, and accessing the resources/persons who can best meet a particular need.

Examples:

• Soliciting foundation funding to provide a water purification system for a school with a high level of poisonous fluoride in the ground water.
  
  
• Working with the public administration department of a U.S. university to provide in-service leadership and management training for administrators/principals/community leaders to be better able to identify targets, then find and manage resources to achieve them.
  
  
• Fund-raising to build needed orphanages
  
  
• Structuring a multi-year grant, working with Microsoft engineers in Bangalore and a US school of education, to reform outdated teaching methods and supply needed technology and in-service teacher training.
  
  

Talent responsive – we encourage and facilitate the participation of people, institutions and businesses with talents or resources that can help us better serve our children and poor families.

Examples:

• Linking with a US school of education that wants to work with a school system in the developing world to innovate better teaching methods and intern student teachers.
  
  
• Providing specifications for LED lights manufactured by a US company interested in participating in the “green” and sustainable buildings we construct in India.
  
  
• Coordinating visits by retired U.S. physicians/ dentists for short-term assignments in India
  
  
• Finding appropriate projects for a service club in India.
  
  
• Organizing Indian engineers, physicians, dentists in India looking for a way to “give back”

Homes of Hope India-US works in collaboration with the following:

• Lynch Family Foundation – multiple grants: photovoltaic system;
  water purification, school bus
• WaterHope – multiple grants: wells, water purification
• Rotary International – six solar-powered water purification systems
  through Wilmington NC Rotary clubs
• YAK Foundation (Netherlands) – water systems

Matching Gifts:

• General Electric Foundation
• Glaxo Smith Kline Foundation
• Google Matching Gifts Program
• Microsoft Matching Gifts Program

Inspiring and sustaining our work in India is an at once simple and profound spirituality. It is this spirituality that infuses the lives of the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco who care for the orphan girls, teach in our schools, and reach out into the poor communities that we serve.

Don Bosco was an Italian parish priest in the nineteenth century who came across a nine-year old homeless boy one day in Turin, Italy, and, knowing what would happen if he remained on the streets, took the child under his care. He found other boys and young men in similar situations, the homeless and juvenile delinquents, and soon a small home and community was formed. Others were inspired by his example, and assisted him in the care of these boys, and, over the years a religious society developed, specifically for the care of children and young adults. His female counterpart, Mary Mazzarello, began to take care of the girl orphans. Together, they worked to provide for the material needs and spiritual development of the young.

Their work spread throughout Italy, and eventually the world. Today there are 22,000 Salesian priests and brothers and 16,000 Salesian sisters and who care for orphaned and neglected children. The Salesian sisters comprise the largest female religious community in the world. Their work is focused on what Don Bosco called the “Preventative Method,” which emphasizes love instead of punishment in shaping young lives. It is centered on reason, religion and loving-kindness.

Why they are called Salesians is that Don Bosco did not so much create a new spirituality as adapt that of Francis deSales, a 17th century saint. Francis believed that all people, not just the clergy and religious, are invited to live a life of holiness, as best as a person can do within individual life circumstances and personal characteristics. "Be who you are and be that well to serve the Master Craftsman whose handiwork we are,” Francis said. His spiritually did not concentrate on pious devotions, popular in his day, but was ultimately practical and able to be part of everyone’s life.

Underlying the “Preventative Method” is a certain lightness of spirit. As Mother Mary Mazzarello said to her sisters, “I want no long-faced saints.” The Salesian sisters and those of us who work with them approach our work with the happiness and the privilege of being able to serve the poor.

The Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco work with and welcome all children in need, regardless of religious tradition. We have Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in our schools, in addition to Christian children..