Newport and Strathaven Scouts
Asha Kiran Aheran

HHI is currently embarking on an exciting new project in partnership with Newport Scouts, the leaders of Strathaven Scouts, and our Indian partners. The new project is in Tamil Nadu, the Indian state which adjoins Kerela where we normally work. This is a much less developed region of India than Kerela – we saw cows lying in the road, peacefully chewing the cud, whilst any vehicles swerved around them, something that we don’t see in southern Kerela any more.

The project is in the village of A.P. Nadanor, in Tirunelveli district, about 15 miles south of the city of Tirunelveli. There, Pastor Santosh

has established a thriving church in an area where there was none, has set up tuition groups for poor children in the villages, and gives training in tailoring to some of the women of the village, as well as running medical camps. He has a son who had an inoperable brain tumour and was sent home with only a few days to live; after prayer, his son was healed mentally but left physically disabled and depressed. This has alerted him to the fact that there are many children in the area who have severe mental and physical disabilities; they are unable to go to school, and their parents have neither the skills or the resources to care for them adequately. They are children like Maralavika,

a girl who has severe cerebral palsy and is totally unresponsive, Sathya,

a girl who is seriously mentally retarded and needs a lot of attention, and Ramkumar,

a boy who also has cerebral palsy which leaves him unable to walk.

The plan is that we will work with Pastor Santosh to provide a permanent home – Asha Kiran Asheran, or Rays of Hope Home - for ten of the most severely disabled children like Maralavika and Sathya, with day care for another twenty like Ramkumar. Pastor Santosh already owns a large plot of land on which we can build the home and staff accommodation. We have agreed that we will provide the buildings and infrastructure, and the costs of five residential children and ten day-care children, and that Pastor Santosh will provide the land and gradually raise the funding for the other five residential and ten day-care children.

Newport and Strathaven Scouts have been extraordinarily industrious, and have raised all the costs of setting up the home, and some more besides.

Pastor Santosh is currently applying to transfer the land to his charity (Celestial Ministries – website http://www.cmcet.com ) and seeking planning permission. We hope that the buildings will be complete and that the home will be up and running early in the new Indian academic year (which starts in June or July), although the monsoon season may delay things.