A day at Shishu Bhavan

Mother Teresa’s presence lives on in many ways in Kolkata.  Road signs have pictures of her on them, entreating people to look after the city; souvenir shops can be found selling all variety of religious paraphernalia, inspirational quote cards and the like; and when a taxi driver picks up a westerner I’m sure they are waiting expectantly for us to all want to be taken to the Mother House or one of the other Missionaries of Charity buildings.

Yesterday we spent a day helping the Missionaries of Charity at their Shishu Bhavan home. I haven’t fully worked out exactly how many homes / shelters the order has in Kolkata but the Shishu Bhavan one is for the children with disabilities.

There are 33 children in the home, ranging from 2 years to 18 years old. 8 of the children are boys, and 25 are girls – an indication of how strong the gender inequality is over here still. To have a disabled girl child is much more of a burden and is seen as a double shame, and so these little ones are much more likely to be abandoned.

Please know that I’m not judging those parents – who knows what their backgrounds are, how many other mouths they have to feed, how much they struggle to get by on the little they have, how much they tried to care for their disabled child before getting to the point of admitting defeat, how much of a hole it left in their heart to have to hand their child over. Those details we will never know, but when I think of the support that is available to families in the UK, and still how incredibly hard work it is, then you can see why it might just feel like a burden too far over here and in other developing countries.

The staff looking after the children do an incredible job given the lack of resources available to them, and lack of wider facilities that they can call on. There was no evidence of adapted wheelchairs, or special seating, or any of the plethora of other services that we can call on for our children with extra needs. Just a big mat that the severely disabled children lie on, and space to roam for those children who can move about in some way. Heart-breaking, when you know what they are missing out on.

Yes there were some toys around, and yes there is a lady who every day leads a time of singing with them, which the children all respond to in their own way, and yes there were a number of volunteers who are there for various lengths of time giving extra input. But I salute those ladies who staff the home day in day out.

The love they give those children is by the bucket load. The real carers are local ladies who come in from the community and are paid by the Order. I don’t know the background of the ladies, but the local community certainly doesn’t ooze mod-coms, and the homes are extremely humble dwellings – so this is where the ladies come from each morning and go back to each evening, having spent the day loving, caring for, and tending to all of the needs of 33 extremely high-input children.

Their assistants are the Apostolates – those who are exploring the calling of becoming a Sister  - as well as a couple of Sisters, and a variable number of volunteers from other parts of India and further afield. Every one played their part, but those ladies were incredible.

It was a very memorable day in many ways – seeing inside a part of the great internationally renowned institution that surrounds the name of Mother Teresa, having the opportunity to serve and support the carers who tirelessly love the children, finding out more about myself and my coping strategies when outside my comfort zones, and having the chance to play with, and give love to, the children themselves.

Of course there are all sorts of strands of reflection that come from such a day as well – the impact of gender inequality, the harshness of life for those with any sorts of extra needs when society doesn’t provide a support system, the role of the charity sector and the faith sector in filling the gaps, the massive privilege of what we do have in the UK despite its often highlighted failures etc.  

My prayer is for those children, that they will know how much they are loved. And my prayer is for those ladies, and for the Apostolates and Sisters, caring for and loving the children day in day out – may they be blessed as they are a blessing. And my prayer is that each of us will find ways in which we can fulfil our potential to love and care for those who need a little extra love and care in their world.