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At the age of 88 he walks barefoot through the streets of Pala and in the evenings hitch a ride in the sardine-like jam-packed buses.  The benefactor of old destitutes, Fr.Abraham Kaippanplackal continues his ministration to the needy even in his old age.

The priest of the Lalam church at Pala, Father could not have been blind to the plight of the marginalized living in tents by the banks of Meenachil.  His effort to redeem the children of this Maya Bazar slum resulted in the ‘Boys Town’, the 1^st charitable project started by him in 1959.  During the next 16 years, he started 10 institutions for orphans, aged and the infirm at Pala, Mundankunnu, Nenmeni etc.

Even as the selfless work of Fr.Kaippanplackal became known far and wide, he was bedridden with serious illness.  And thinking that a return to life would be impossible, he entrusted the continuation of his work to the newly come up ‘Snehagiri’ congregation of nuns.

The return from near death was a turning point in his life. 

He sold the inherited property at Kozhuvanal and bought 91 cents of land to start the ‘Daivadan Centre’, the headquarters for his activities, in 1977.  To meet expenses he organised the Ossanam Charitable Society and conducted chitties.  However, he asserts that money was never a problem for running the centre. 

During the last quarter century, he has been instrumental in establishing 1 old age home at Thalasseri, 2 at Pala and 3 at Pala.  And from these places, more than a 1000 persons have regained health and gone back to normal life.  In the Daivadan Centre itself, about 520 persons embraced peaceful death.  At present there are around 500 old people as inmates in all the old age homes put together.

There is another facet of Father that many are unaware of.  He is an architect with a vision and has fashioned the old church at Lalam.

Courtesy: Sebastian Pallithode, Malayalam, June 28, 2002

Contributed by: Administrator

"A crow is never the whiter for washing itself often."