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A Letter from Shanti Sewa
Shanti Sewa is the home and workplace for those who suffer from Leprosy. It
is located near the busy Ring Road outside of Kathmandu. It is a truly
special place where the stigma of leprosy is being energetically replaced
with a living demonstration that these former outcastes can live productively
and joyously.
Even though Shanti Sewa is focused on leprosy, because we operate a free
medical clinic for the destitute, often the dying are left to be cared for,
as there is no other place for them to go.
Here is an excerpt from a recent letter from the director:
Our aim is to help everybody who is in need and comes to our door to ask for
help, even the dying. We lovingly take care of those who could not be saved
until they have died. Often they are too poor and had no relatives, so we
have paid for their cremation.
According to Nepalese customs, the oldest son has to do the necessary rites.
It always makes my heart warm to see how our patients jump in and help. They
carry the corpse (that is washed and wrapped in white cloth). One of the
older men declares himself to be the oldest son of the family and pours water
from the Bagmati River on the corpse, lights the fire and stays for the next
6 hours.
When we realized that Shanti is a place where the dying find shelter, we
decided to officially open a hospice. Our idea is
to make the hospice a warm, welcoming place - within the limited
possibilities we have. This was achieved by choosing warm, sunny yellow for
the walls and the bed sheets. The theme of the paintings is: a wonderfully
decorated elephant. Above the doors our most talented painter, Jogendra,
drew various gods, Ganesh, Krishna and Hanuman.
The patients who are presently being cared for are: Suraj, a four year old
AIDS stricken little boy, whose mother died in our clinic 8 weeks ago. For
the first time we also have a very young leprosy patient: Punam. She is ten
years old. Four patients suffer from TB and one elderly man has a hard time
with chronic obstructive lung disease.
Our clinic is a bright oasis among the gray concrete buildings along the ring
road - we added a thatched roof pavilion, made of bamboo to protect the
waiting patients of the glaring sun and at present of the heavy monsoon
rains. We bought new iron beds, paint, shelves for filing and mats to
insulate the corrugated iron roof.
Our plans for Budhanilhanta, our center outside of the city, are to
intensify the vegetable garden in order to get more and self reliant. We
planted hundreds of fruit trees in the past three months in order to stop
erosion and furthermore to hopefully have enough fruit in the not too distant
future, that may yield some income.
Thank you once agin for your greatly appreciated help. Leprosy is not a
cause many people are interested in. You donations help to keep this
important project going and to help these most desperate of the world's poor.
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