![]() "We don't have to struggle anymore to avoid dirty water seeping into our houses and fight rodents," he told GSR.Īlaka Rathy, who earns 600 rupees ($7.8) a day from lottery ticket sales, paid 1.1 million rupees ($14,177) for her 957-square foot house, one of the biggest in the area. They also bathe before entering their new houses.Īnil Kumar, whose mother was the first to rebuild a house in 2019, said they have a hall and kitchen on the ground floor and two bedrooms, bath and toilet on the first. Earlier they used to sort the rags in their settlements," Arackal said. "The rag pickers, they do not bring their collection home. People take special care to keep their new houses clean. "People of all faiths live here in harmony," Arackal said. Some residents are natives of Kerala while others have come from the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. UN-Habitat defines a slum as an area where the residents have no access to proper sanitation, water and a safe dwelling.Īrackal says if her congregation had not upgraded the houses in the Udaya slum, the government would have taken over the area and sent its residents to far-flung resettlements. A survey by India's Housing Ministry reveals that 65 million of its 1.38 billion citizens live in slums - about 4.64% of the population. "A few philanthropists and some corporate firms who wanted to improve the lot of the marginalized came forward to help," he told GSR.Īrackal says she hopes the Udaya Colony becomes a model for other slums in Kerala. The nuns have thus far disbursed 12.5 million rupees ($161,070) to build 80 of the 125 houses that people in the enclave need.īabu Joseph, a retired college principal who helps Arackal, recalls the nuns seeking help from many. The nuns built the houses with two or three floors on a raised foundation to keep off the rainwater. "By God's grace, I got enough to help those willing to rebuild," she said. Since the amount was insufficient, Arackal got her congregation to put in an additional 200,000 rupees, or $2,577, and borrowed 300,000 rupees ($3,865) from banks for each house. ![]() But slowly they realized the importance of education and the classes continued without food," Arackal said. "The children came more for milk, eggs, biscuits and snacks than to study. The sisters offered them snacks to draw them to their coaching classes. Initially, the sisters focused on the children in the slum. I spent nine years there," she told Global Sisters Report in March, speaking from her new residence in Ghaziabad, near New Delhi, despite suffering from a vocal cord problem.Īrackal, who was associated with the slum project as a novice after joining the congregation in 1990, commended the pioneers for daring to enter a place where even men feared to go. However, God, who had inspired me to work for the downtrodden, arranged everything. When the permission came after a year, Alappat and her companion sister found the enclave in a pathetic condition. She asked me to wait for a year," said the nun, who was then the headmistress of a school in Kochi. "I was touched by the article and I approached my provincial to let me go to the enclave, but she did not want me to go. Alappat, 83, recalls reading an article in a magazine asking who will spread light in the enclave of darkness.
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