Meridian Cares

Editor’s Note: She’s a child of only 10, but her family casts her into the street and out of their lives, turning their faces away. Why? She has that dreaded disease that will make the entire family shunned and unable to work. Leprosy. So they discard her.

Can it be? In this time of medical advancement, that the leprosy-affected are begging on the streets and sleeping under newspapers at night, cast out and forgotten? Or maybe they live in one of the 750 colonies for the leprosy -affected in India.  

You read the scriptures and think, I would not have turned and run away. I would have extended my hand to help. What’s remarkable is that you can help someone from a family of the leprosy-affected in India today, right now—and it is so easy. Meridian Magazine is joining with the Rising Star Foundation, to invite our readers to sponsor a child, so they can go to school. We know Becky Douglas and the Rising Star Foundation well and are so impressed with their program, that we have sponsored five children. We have their photos on our wall, right by our computers where we work each day so we can see them. It makes us happy.

These students will attend the Bihar School that Rising Star has just built and that you Meridian readers helped to fund. Read on for this inspiring story.

Back in October 2019, Meridian readers came together and generously donated to build a campus for children of families affected by leprosy in Bihar, India.  Bihar is arguably the poorest state in India and has more people affected by leprosy, than any other state.

The campaign was an outpouring of love and generosity!  Your response was overwhelming!  Our goal at Rising Star Outreach, together with Meridian Magazine, was to raise $100,000 towards the campus.  But you all stunned us!  A whopping $220,000 was raised, which was then matched by an anonymous donor, to make a grand total of $440,000.  It was incredible!

Other donors came forward, in part, inspired by you all.  The necessary money was finally  raised.  The land was purchased.  Plans were eagerly drawn up.

Now the school is nearly completed.  It’s been so exciting watching these buildings rise! We will dedicate the new campus on January 3. What a joyous day that will be!

Being able to come to this school completely changes the trajectory of each child’s lives.

Please join with other Meridian readers in sponsoring a child (or children) by clicking here.

I asked our social worker for a story of the latest child we have admitted into the school.  This is her story:

 Lakshmi (not her real name*) was a bright-eyed 10-year-old girl, full of life and dreams, when her world was turned upside down. She noticed unusual white patches on her skin, and as the days passed, they grew larger and more painful. At first, she tried to ignore them, then hide them. Her parents finally took her to the doctor, and the diagnosis shook their small village: Lakshmi had leprosy.

 Fear and superstition took hold, and soon Lakshmi’s own family disowned her, abandoning her on the outskirts of the village.  A ten-year-old tiny girl!  She frantically begged them to keep her.  She was terrified.  She was all alone.  Where would she sleep?  Where would she stay?  She had no way to gain food; no one to protect her from the dangers of the street, where evil men prey on unprotected children.  But the parents would not budge.  If they kept her, the entire family would become Untouchables.  They turned away and forbade her to follow.

 Fearfully, she wandered the streets, shunned by everyone she met.  She lived in constant fear and with constant hunger.  One day, a kind-faced social worker spotted Lakshmi rummaging through trash for food. She gently coaxed Lakshmi into her car and drove her to the Leprosy Hospital at Little Flower.

 Last month the doctor at the hospital declared Lakshmi safe and cured of the disease, though she had lost one of her toes. Repeated calls to her family went unanswered.  The  hospital continued to reach out to her family.   Finally, her mother came and told the Leprosy Hospital that they were not going to take their child back.

The rejection was heartbreaking. 

Lakshmi’s future looked bleak.  She couldn’t stay at the leprosy hospital.  But where could she go?  She desperately begged them not to put her back on the street.  Her joy in living had completely evaporated and she sunk into depression. The spark in her eyes had gone out.  At the tender age of ten, she felt unwanted, unloved, uncared for, and no hope in sight.

Will you start sponsoring a child today? Click here. 

 As Lakshmi felt herself sinking into despair, volunteers from Rising Star Outreach visited the hospital.  Initially, she tried to shrink and make herself smaller so they wouldn’t notice her.  She was so used to being brutally shunned.  But they came to her cot and coaxed her into telling them her story.  With tears streaming down her face, she told them of the fear, hunger, and rejection she lived with daily.  She felt she was cursed by God and had no right to life. 

Instead of screaming at her to keep away, the volunteers sat on the bed next to her and embraced her.  Together, they agreed to be her sponsors to attend the Rising Star Outreach school.

 At Rising Star, Lakshmi found a new family. The staff and volunteers embraced her with love and compassion, providing medical treatment, nutritious food, and education. They taught her to manage her condition and regain her confidence.

Lakshmi will join her school class in our campus in September 2024.  This is the new campus that Meridian Readers have helped to fund!  In her new environment she will be able to make friends with other children affected by leprosy. She will be loved and cherished by the staff.  She will learn at the school.  If she works hard and graduates, her sponsors will make sure she gets to college.

 Lakshmi’s journey from abandonment to empowerment serves as a testament to the transformative power of love and support. Rising Star Outreach of India had not only healed her physical wounds but had also restored her dignity and purpose.

We want to sponsor all the children of leprosy-affected families to come to the school that you, as Meridian readers helped build. Sponsor a child by clicking here. 

Lakshmi, once abandoned by her family due to leprosy, now finds hope and healing thanks to the Rising Star Outreach program.

Can you help us with more Lakshmis?  Every day our director, Suku, is bombarded by parents, many who have traveled long distances to come and plead for their children to be admitted to the school.  Our hearts are broken daily as we have to turn these precious children away.  We promise them that as soon as we can get sponsors to help pay for their care, we will gladly admit them to our school.

The students live at the school.  The leprosy colonies are so spread out, that the students cannot possibly come and go every day.  That has turned into a blessing in disguise as it makes it possible for us to control that they are taught in a school where they are treated with dignity and respect.  It also lets us make sure their diets are sufficient and they are receiving proper medical and dental care.

We are almost giddy as we watch the buildings taking shape.  This new campus will be able to serve 700 students.  The school we are currently running in Bihar has 308 students.  But we have hundreds of children on our waiting list!  As families have watched what has happened as their neighbor’s children have attended our school, they have had new hope kindled in their hearts.  Now everyone, it seems, wants their children to come.

Every new student costs us $1,080 per year.  That includes the costs of the teachers, principal, social workers at the school, along with the cost of food, housemothers, medical and dental care.  To admit all the children on our waiting list would cost us nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year.  That’s simply more than we have available. For us to be able to absorb the cost of new students we have decided to wait until a child has sponsors, before we can admit him/her to the school.

Meridian Magazine has offered to help us in this quest.

What does it take to sponsor a child?  A commitment of $30/month.  It costs less than a typical family trip to McDonalds.  The children love to get letters from their sponsoring families.  It’s one more witness that someone loves and cares for them.  It is also possible to Skype with the children, as soon as they are able to communicate in English.  We have hundreds of wonderful friendships that have developed between sponsors and their children.  It is a beautiful experience on both ends!

We are hoping to get sponsorships for all 200 children on our waiting list.  I feel that it will take a miracle.  But Meridian readers have made miracles happen in the past!  And I suspect that for each child who receives a sponsor, they feel that a miracle has happened to them.  Join us and become a miracle worker!

Will you join the Proctors in sponsoring a child by clicking here? 

*We don’t use the children’s real names in online forums.  This is a protection for underprivileged children, established by the United Nations.