The widow’s home in India

Varanasi: a pilgrims city

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.

Our Vision:

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.

As widows are very much on God’s heart, we are committed to show God’s love by telling them the message of His love and by teaching the skills which will enable them to return into the society. We see the widows as individuals, precious in the eyes of God and we like to treat them with that same respect, not as mere numbers in an institution.

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.

Our goal is to have 50 widows living in the home.

These will be widows who are living on the streets; those who are sick, handicapped or have mental problems.

Our goal is to employ 1500 widows.

Those who come daily to learn and earn through various micro enterprises i.e. handicrafts, , baking, tailoring, making soap and candle, peanut butter and jam, and  making jewelry. All these articles will be sold in a shop, which has been built on the same property and at other locations as wellIn this way we started Hope Arts, a bakery and many other micro enterprises like shops, etc.

 

• Some of the widows whom we train, will work from their own houses and bring their products to our centre once a week.

• The widows home will also be used to run various training schools and seminars of Youth with a Mission (YWAM).

• Children’s ministry will be a part of this home because some widows will come with small children.

• It is also a place where our staff can live with the widows to help them more effectively.