Community Care for Widows

The state of Andhra Pradesh is comprised of thousands of villages and hundreds of towns and tens of cities.

Emmanuel Nethala, Correspondent and Vice-President at Grace Children’s Orphanage, described visiting the many local villages seeing hundreds and thousands of widows living in appalling conditions, without clothing to cover themselves, inadequate food any many suffering from a number of treatable illnesses all due to a lack of basic medicine and nutrition, “I was moved by every situation I saw to continue the work of the ministry in the name of God for the good of these people”

“We surveyed the villages and towns and from each area we gathered 100 names and their historical background.  We then sorted from the list 10 of the most needy widows and we support them.  In total so far we have selected nearly 1500 of the most destitute male and female widows”

To begin with each Widow was given $5 a month, to care for their food and medicines. In addition once every six months a Widows Fellowship meeting is held in different places to ascertain their well-being and to meet any emergencies they have, distribute clothes, home needs such as medicines, soaps, blankets, detergents etc., meet any travel expenses and provide a nutritious group meal.

There is still much work to do to ensure safety, confidence and dignity.  During daily prayers please remember these men and women.  They have endured great hardships and do not have any family they can turn to for assistance.

Since the number of widows needing help has increased, we are planning to open specialist widow centres in different places. At present one widow’s home with 12 rooms is under construction to house 50 people.