Sumanahalli, Bangalore
Sumanahalli, a leprosy centre in Bangalore, is our fourth partner in India. The centre is run by a catholic priest, Father George, who greatly impressed us with his hands-on approach to the relief effort following the South East Asian tsunami. He and some members of his team headed straight down to one of the worst affected areas the day after the tsunami struck to give immediate and practical help. We secured a grant for the building of a secure room to house the DVD equipment here and are now working on getting more lessons translated and recorded into the local language, Kannada, with help from Father George's second in command, Father Joseph. The plan is that the equipment and lessons will be used by the people staying at the centre, as well as by people from the local community.
Lady Doak College, Tamil Nadu
The first women's college in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, Southern India is the latest partner to sign up to assist with translations of our lessons. The principal and students of the college have started work on translating our top ten scripts into Tamil which we hope to be able to use in Sri Lanka as well. Once the Tamil lessons are ready students from Lady Doak College will use them in their community work in the surrounding area; we will supply them with portable DVD players for this work.