
Varanasi is one of India’s most holy cities. Thousands of pilgrims come to this city to bathe in the river Ganges, to wash away their sins. The belief is that if you die in this city, you will go straight to heaven. This is one of the reasons why so many widows are here.
Another reason is that many of those who come here on pilgrimage leave their widows behind, so that they don’t have to take care of them any more.
Because of this the city is crowded with widows living on the streets, having no one to care for them. There is an estimated 10,000 of them. They earn a living by begging or by prostitution. Some have lost their sanity due to the desperate situation they are in. We believe that God wants us to take care of the widows, so they will have a better life.
In 1997 God spoke to us about the widows of Varanasi. He told us to build a home for them where they can live in dignity and where others can come and earn a living.
Our vision is to help these widows. We want to house 50 widows who are in desperate circumstances, and help them and their children who often accompany them. We also want to equip 1500 younger widows with skills, so that they can earn a decent income and experience the Hope that they never had.
We knew this will take time, a lot of staff, finances and know-ledge. We have built the home and have started taking in widows.
Today we have 25 widows living with us. We have trained and employed almost 100 widows in various income generating projects and we opened a small shop selling some of their products.
Your help is desiredParticipateDo you like to help and be a part of our project? So far, God enabled us to help around 100 widows to start small micro enterprises. |
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