YOUNG COUPLE WHO TAKE CARE OF 220 MENTAL PATIENTS
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Santhosh and Mini, Maria Sadan, Kishathadiyoor, Pala |
Home to 220 mental patients including 84 women: that is Maria Sadan, Kishathadiyoor, Pala run by the young couple Santhosh and Mini.
How did they start the venture? Says Santhosh: “ It was my mother’s tears and my wife’s prayers that paved the way for this home of love.”
About 5 years back Santhosh was involved in a drunken brawl in a hotel. When people at large came to know about it, he felt like disappearing from the place. At the same time, profits from the rubber business started dwindling. He was forced to sell his house and land and move into a rented house.
At the insistence of his wife, Santhosh attended a meditation organized by Fr. Prasanth at Alappuzha. That was the turning point in their life. During meditation he received a message: “Invite homeless to your home”.
He started inviting beggars to his home. He would clean them, feed them and drop them back in the evening. Two years back a person resting in a waiting shed at Pala told him: “I am not interested in coming to your place for just one day”.
Without thinking twice, Santhosh invited the man to their two-roomed house and treated him as he would, his own father. When the number of such inmates increased, the house owner leased out the cowshed also. For sometime Santhosh, Mini, their three children and 6 patients lived in the cowshed.
By the grace of a friend a 30 cent plot was made available to them. Later they put up a two roomed shed there. This is the Maria Sadan which houses the 220 inmates today.
Everyday expenses of Maria Sadan for food and medicine alone come to Rs.5000. Donations help to tide themselves over. “God feeds everyone. We live with that hope”, says 27-year-old Mini.
Mini with an inmate
Courtesy: Vanitha, December 15-31, 1999
Contributed by: Administrator
