Claretian Mercy Home for Abandoned Babies
RPI has assisted the Mercy Home since 2007. The Home was founded in 1987 by the Claretian Missionary Fathers to rescue babies from the menace of female infanticide, which was rife in the western District of Madurai. It is located 25 km west of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. The Claretian Mercy Home is managed by the collaboration of CHILD Trust, Sisters of Charity of St. Mary and Relief Projects India.
The Home works in co-ordination with local authorities and hospitals, who frequently pass unwanted babies on to the Home to take care of. Other babies are sometimes abandoned on roads near the Home where they can be found by staff. Some parents come and voluntarily surrender their baby.
The Mercy Home arranges medical treatment and operations for the babies when necessary, through contacts with local hospitals. The Home is licensed to place babies in Indian adoptive families.
Recently the Home has started to receive several male babies from unwed mothers. Handicapped babies are frequentlfy abandoned also.
Read more about female infanticide and feoticide in India.
Little Darlings Toddler Group
Little Darlings—the name we have given to the toddler group at the Mercy Home. These toddlers were abandoned by their parents, some are handicapped, most are female. The handicapped ones most likely will not be adopted; a few toddlers are waiting for paper work to go through. They face a very challenging future, especially in India, a country which tends not to value female and handicapped people. And, as they were abandoned, they have no relatives, or community to which they belong.
When they were with the smaller babies in the nursery, the heavy workload prevented the baby carers from providing the training and attention that these older babies need. So we have separated them into their own wing, with their own teacher and 'aya', (nanny), their own classroom, play area, bathroom and bedroom. See Photos »
Our goals, in Lil' Darlings are the following:
- Make them feel loved and special.
- Build positive self esteem.
- Provide a structured schedule and environment to help them feel secure, and to provide necessary training in life skills, such as potty training, hygiene, learning to feed themselves, putting away their toys, etc.
- Give them a healthy diet.
- Provide opportunities for them go outside to get good exercise and fresh air, and see nature (the Mercy Home is located in a rural area.)
- Utilise early learning techniques, in order to aid their mental and intellectual development. These simple and easy-to-use techniques include providing them with supervised play time with educational toys, reading age-appropriate books to them, singing songs with them, action rhymes, and showing them 'picture fact' flash cards a few times a day. We also use the 'Brillkids Reading Program' with them which the Brillkids Foundation kindly donated.
Nursery
RPI Accomplishments:
- Helped provide a generator to cope with the frequent power cuts, which were causing boils and severe heat rashes to the babies.
- With the help of Minna and Arnold, and VAAKA, Finland, supplied hundred of nappies and nappy covers to improve hygiene, and many clothes, some specially made to fit the low birth weight babies. Also new sheets, towels and waterproof pads.
- Provided training in basic sanitation and hygiene.
- Provided toys, baby walkers, baby bottles and changing pads.
- Set up a pediatric ICU unit. This includes two incubators, and photo therapy light.
- Tiled the entire nursery area.
- Set up a proper changing table next to a sink for washing hands.
- Constructed covered area on roof to dry laundry during monsoons.
- Separated the toddlers from the small babies to give them better care and attention. (See 'Lil Darlings.)
Thanks to these measures, the babies are healthier and happier and trips to the hospital are now rare.