Dear friends, Unlike other years, the New Year 2005 has started with the shock caused by the tsunami. It was like a nightmare and difficult even to think of the millions of people sinking in pain and many of us are still under its grip. Perhaps an event like this might have made us think about the littleness of the human life and the meaning of our own existence ! In the midst of struggles and pain, it has also brought out the solidarity, as for the first time the whole world came together as a family to support each other. As each of us reach out to other lives in a little or big way, I wish that we all experience the joy of sharing and giving. Sometimes I feel that all what we live is passing and what remains at the end is what we have given to others to have a better life. Whatever may be the reason pain is always pain and if we can reduce the pain of someone whom we don’t even know, that is the real Love and it brings happiness to our heart ! There was a request for a new project from India to support the leprosy patient’s children. Again, a choice had to be made. What we plan is to see the fund available to run the Saint-Anthony's School and to slowly support the children of leprosy patients. Also, we plan to make more advertisements for this new project, so that we may find more people interested in this project. As it is now, we have to keep in mind to expand the school building sooner or later. We will have more than 400 children in 2006... For the current phase of the school project we have invested approximately 200 thousands euros. It represents for Anthony's Charity three years of received donations. All what we do is just because of each of you and as we are a small group of people, each of your support is valuable. Marc Valentin, President

Saying no to the request for help of the leprosy patient's children would make many more lives to end up in the street. I hope you will be happy to see more children being able to go to schools and get good education as we take this new project.

Saint-Anthony's School has a bus !

Only a few people in the villages have cycles or motorcycles. To go to the market or to the cities, they walk for miles and even to reach the main road it takes a long time. In this situation, it is impossible for the children to reach the school without any transportation. Though we had a jeep to start with it took hours for children to reach home as we had to do more trips.The starting of the school in the morning, on time was also difficult. So we bought a bus. We bought the engine of the bus and built its body seperatly as it is cheaper in this way. The bus carries 80 to 90 children in one trip. We hope to insist that as they grow bigger, they should come to school by cycle.

Our children in the school are between 4 to 9 years old. They need transportation to come to the school.

The struggles with buildings

It has been an ongoing struggle to get the buildings done on time. The very fact that the area is in the remote village, it became very difficult to get the work move. There is no electricity to do the works like floor grinding etc. We had to even invest more money as many of the works which had to be done by the electricity is done with the fuel. The building contractors are not very happy as they have to bring each and every materials required from the city. At the moment the teacher’s house is under construction. Teachers are living in the near by villages, they are coping with inconveniences such as absence of proper toilets, clean water, etc.

The teachers's building will be ready soon. Unavailability of materials is a big hindrance to the smooth progress of the work.

Family Visit

		On Saturdays the school finishes at 12.00. In the afternoon teachers go to visit houses of the children. The house visit help us to have a good rapport with all the villages around and also to get to know the families closer. In 6 months time all the houses of the children are visited. As women don’t come out of their homes, it is the time where the teachers can have a dialogue with the mothers.
		« My child already knows much more than me and I am surprised to see her growth ». (The mother of Rekha)

A new project for the year 2005

During the last few years, I used to interview children of leprosy patients to admit them in a boarding school in Delhi, run by a religious congregation. The priest in charge gives the number of children to be taken in the boarding for the year – usually it is around 10 to 14 children.

This day used to be a day of pain and struggle as the children to be admitted have to be chosen. There will be so many of them coming with their parents, each one wanting to admit their own child. At the end, we have to painfully send most of them away and of course, we know, they often turn to begging along with their parents.

The boarding schools run by religious congregations for leprosy patient’s children were started with the intention of separating the children from their parents as they were at risk of contacting the disease. As the medicine for leprosy is now easily available, the severeness of this disease has come down and the children now live with their parents and the number of children taken to the boardings are come down to a few. Some of the parents wish that anyhow their children get educated while others take them to beg along with them, because it is beyond their capacity to educate them. A few months ago when I visited a leprosy colony I met Vinod, 10 years old, one of the children whom we couldn’t admit to school, now going to beg with his parents. Once they get used to begging, it is difficult to make them go to school or to study.

Since running a boarding school for children is expensive the only way we could think of helping them is to send them to the near by schools. As these colonies are situated near the cities, there are good schools in the cities. So, if we meet their educational expenses the children will get education.

We have already admitted some children and we hope to reach out to more of them. We owe the gratitude to YOU for the support by which we are able to start this new project.

Molly Sebastian,
Project manager

I was in India in december 2004 for the setup of this new project... Talk about it to people you may know and help more children of leprosy patients to go to school !