Building hope, brick by brick, in southern IndiaPoor

A roof above the head is an unthinkable proposition for many poor people in India’s southern state of Kerala. Yet a Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) nun armed with just compassion and determination has managed to provide 150 houses to those in need.

May 17, 2020

By Rita Joseph,
A roof above the head is an unthinkable proposition for many poor people in India’s southern state of Kerala. Yet a Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) nun armed with just compassion and determination has managed to provide 150 houses to those in need.

Sister Lizzy Chakkalakal, 52, said the idea of helping the impoverished receive proper housing in Kochi, the commercial hub of Kerala, was initially a daunting task.

“But somehow my faith in Jesus supplied me with the strength and courage to walk through each day’s demands with hope in my heart,” said Sister Chakkalakal who is the head of Our Lady’s Convent Girls Higher Secondary School.

“One day I went to the home of one of my students who had just lost her father,” Sister Chakkalakal said.

“I was appalled at the conditions they were living in. Her ramshackle hut would have collapsed any moment,” she said.

“The scene kept haunting me, I wanted to help the girl’s family. So, I spoke to some teachers and students. All pooled in and we were able to provide them a more durable structure,” the nun said.

“Then I thought to myself if all it took was a little motivation on my part, why not help other poor students who desperately needed a proper shelter.”

Sister Chakkalakal then established the House Challenge project in 2012.

The nun said she was also spurred on by the thought that so many of the girls lacked privacy in their own homes in what was often stressful living conditions.

“Some lived in a one-room tenement in a coastal slum with an alcoholic father who would come home abuse the mother and children,” she said.  

Sister Chakkalakal said that children living in such conditions develop an inferiority complex and lack self-esteem.

“For me the main purpose of education is the integral and holistic development of every student,” the nun said.

“I realized that these students cannot attain this objective without some basic facilities in life. One cannot grow with self-confidence and dignity living in such pathetic conditions.”

Our Lady’s Convent Girls Higher Secondary School is known as a ‘socio-friendly school’. Sister Chakkalakal said it organizes a variety of outreach programs to inculcate in students love, sharing, compassion, team spirit, fraternal sensitivity, and other values that lead to personal commitment and social responsibility.--LiCAS.news