NSM Hostel - World's Children

Sister Padma, on the left, administers NSM Hostel, while Sister Bhagiya is the principal of the school.

The Nithya Sahaya Matha Hostel, home to 94 girls.

Nithya Sahaya Matha Hostel

Off the Map

These two Catholic-administered orphanages are located in the tiny town of Repalle, India just a few miles inland from the Bay of Bengal, accessible by just one airplane fight in or out each day. You won’t find Repalle on any map. Too remote. Too small. The nearest airport is 30 miles away and only one small plane lands there each day; unloading and taking off in the span of a half hour. And then it’s 24 hours until the next flight. For those unable to afford an airplane ticket, it’s a 12 hour bus ride to the nearest big city.

Danger Zone

Located on the delta of the Krishna River, this area is fertile but dangerous. Storms – really big storms – are a fact of life here. Four monstrous cyclones (hurricanes) and a tsunami have struck in the past 30 years. Rather than giving their cyclones first names as we do, they name them according to the destruction they caused. A 1977 storm was called Killer Cyclone after it took more than 30,000 lives. In 1990 Destroyer Cyclone pushed waves far inland and washed away thousands of homes along with the people in them. Water wells were salty for decades after that storm. Cyclones struck again in 1997 and 2006 and the tsunami of 2004 just added to the misery.

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Hostel girls during their lunch break wearing their school uniforms.

The 1990 cyclone pushed salty ocean water far inland where it sunk into the sandy soil and salinated all the wells. For 16 years the girls at NSM Hostel had to drink and bathe in salty water, in addition to carrying it from this pump into the hostel.

The Wherever the Need charity, formerly affiliated with WCI, connected the hostel to a new municipal water tank that provided sweet water directly into the kitchen and bathroom areas of the hostel.

Quiet Saints

The five nuns from the Jesus, Mary, Joseph Order who run the Nithya Sahaya Matha (NSM) Hostel and School are saints, though they will never be canonized because no one knows them except the poor fishing and farming families they serve.

The NSM Hostel was started in 1972 and today cares for 94 girls from extremely poor homes. Some of them are orphans, but most have living parents who cannot support their daughters properly. Of the five nuns, three work in the school, which serves 700 students including the 94 hostel girls. Another sister runs the hostel and the fifth visits surrounding villages assisting AIDS infected people. The Jesus Mary Joseph Order was begun in Holland in 1822 and was started in India in 1904.

The NSM sisters routinely visit outlying villages, seeking families that need help or children who are malnourished, mistreated or working grueling jobs rather than attending school. When they find girls who need their love and attention they try to convince the parents to let their daughters stay in the NSM Hostel.

Most of the people living in this area are from the dalit or untouchable caste and work as coolies or bonded laborers. They are landless but too poor to move to a less dangerous area even though they live in fragile structures made from palm fronds and barely earn enough to buy food for their families. Many of the poorest families are paid to kill rats in farmers’ fields.

A $75 Career

The order has several convents and service projects in this part of India including a tailoring course for girls who are unable to finish high school. A World’s Children donor recently paid for 25 foot-operated sewing machines so that each girl who graduated from this vocational training program would receive her own sewing machine and could start a small business. Each machine cost just $75.

A day in school is better than a day hunting rats

Last year the sisters discovered 42 children from the Yeruki and Yanaadi tribes who spent their days working the family business – killing rats with sticks. For every rat they killed in farmers’ fields they are paid one rupee. A hard-earned 48 dead rats would gain the family a dollar.

It was a sacrifice for these extremely poor tribal people to give up their young rat hunters. Sister Padma, the Mother Superior for the NSM convent, asked us for $600 to buy school books and uniforms for the 42 Yeruki and Yanaadi children. The day after we received her plea a check for $600 arrived from a woman who requested her donation be used to help the very poorest children.

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Married to God

We asked Sister Padma why she and the other nuns chose to say their vows to God rather than to a husband.

If we get married we will be confined to our family and we are restricted. Now we are free to show our love and concern and render our services to anyone, anywhere who is in need, very poor and struggling in life. All people are our people, and all children are our children.

A stitch in time will save these girls from a life of poverty.