Mother Teresa Award For Kripa Foundation

The 3rd Mother Teresa Memorial National award for Social Justice,was awarded to Kripa Foundation on 26th October 2008 in recognition of its contribution to addressing social ills,esppecially in the service of the marginalised owing to addiction and HIV/AIDS. The vent was hosted by Harmony Foundation in Mumbai.

Rev Fr Joe H Pereira, Founder Trustee of Kripa Foundation, recieved this prestigious awrd at the hands of Teesta Setalvad and Shri Mahesh Bhatt.

Letter from Fr Joe to Fr laurence and the world community

Welcome....Mumbai, India
Dear Father Laurence and all the World Community,
I can feel the strength of the Spirit each morning and evening as we meditate during this unprecedented crisis in the city of Mumbai (Bombay).The encounters with the Terrorists are still on. Many have lost their lives. The city has never been so quiet! There has been much sadness and gloom.
But in my Eucharist I kept on asking people to sit in silence with our Mantra, Maranatha, and we are seeing so many deeply life transforming miracles taking place. Truly our God does bring good even out of evil. There are such touching stories of how the Staff of the Hotels, especially the Taj, went about rescuing their guests, many foreigners even though it cost them their lives. The general Manager lost his own wife and child while he was rescuing others at the same time! Fourteen dedicated Police lost their lives, but they got a hero's cremation with people of all communities coming for it. Slogans all over the city say, "We are Indians first and no Terrorist can divide us though we belong to different Faiths." The highlight of this miraculous spirit of Unity was that, for the first time, the Opposition Leader (a diehard Hindu Fundamentalist) agreed to come together with the Prime Minister Manmohan Sing and Sonia Gandhi to the place of the happening.
The whole world, especially many significant Nations, especially President Elect Barack Obama, have pledged to stand by India and give every assistance. The FBI team has flown in for help .There is such a sense of Unity amidst this attempt to divide.
May I invite all the WCCM to be with us. Many of us have felt fear replaced by Love deep within us.
All of us in the meditation groups, especially the one at Mt.Carmel that has a multireligious participation, feel strong in the silence of the Spirit.
Thank you, Father Laurence, for helping to build this beautiful community of Love through Contemplation. Indeed, John Main was absolutely right: Meditation does create community.
Love,
Fr Joe Periera

MY HOME AWAY FROM HOME .

For friends who do not know me, I would like to first briefly tell you that I have been suffering from this dreaded disease for the last 20 years and Innumerable Treatments at Rehab Centres and Hospitalisations were of no help as I latter realised that “The Program suggests the Path that we should follow which will change our lives and enable to achieve the sobriety that we need to live a whole life.

In spite of my repeated relapses and being considered a worthless alcoholic it was the greatness of Rev. Father Joe Pereira who never gave up hope on me and kept telling to me try again and again to put what I had learned about the Program into practice. “GOD is with all of us, he said, let us ask HIM to help and miracles will happen.”

This works, believe me, it worked for me.

For me Kripa is my home to come to, and I make it point to spend my weekends at Vasai and help in any small manner I can to help Father Joe and all at Kripa to carry forward the great work that he has been doing with unselfish devotion.

I do believe that some you who are reading this have been helped by Kripa to achieve what we all wanted to in our hearts, but did not know to do it. Kripa showed me the way, it is simple we have to “WALK THE TALK”. Just follow the Steps and GOD will do the rest.

I have a humble request to my friends who have benefited from this Program and Kripa, we need you to come and share your Story with our patients in the Rehab, this will help them and also more importantly you.

The 12th. Step is meant to help us people in recovery to stay Sober; we are helping ourselves by helping others, that is the Foundation of AA and what Bill W did on that night in Akron when he asked for help to meet another Alcoholic.

Just something which I have learnt and would like to share.

We

First word of the Twelve Steps

We, This little word says a lot about the Twelve Steps.

The "we" of the program makes us whole again. It makes us a member of a loving growing group of people.

Our addiction isolated us from others. We couldn't be honest with ourselves and others; We felt a lot of shame and guilt.

But all this is in the past. The "We" of the program helps us live outside ourselves. Now we tell each other about our pasts. We comfort each other. We try to help each other.

Please help us to help your own recovery, we need you and believe me we need each other.

Today, I'll work to make the We of the program even stronger. I'll find someone to help.

What each patient brings is his or her own personal experience of alcoholism well digested; that’s the essence of community….”

Please contact your nearest Kripa Center and try and help out there, it will help you, and the Promises written in the Big Book will come true and bring a new meaning to your life and those close to you.

Pankaj K.

Addiction Centre at DAC,Mumbai, Forcefully Evicted

Thursday, 8th May 2008, started off as a perfectly normal day for the patients and staff of Kripa Foundation De-addiction Centre (DAC), Andheri. This facility, as the name denotes, is the place where addicts / alcoholics are admitted to detoxify their bodies from the physical withdrawal symptoms that are caused by alcohol and drug abuse. All inmates who are admitted here have been beaten on all fronts by the drug of their choice, namely, mental, physical, spiritual, financial, social, etc. It takes a great deal of effort and hard work on the part of the counselors and community staff to maintain the level of motivation among these clients.

Things progressed normally until 11:00 am when the harrowing ordeal began. The Chief Medical Officer – BMC along with a dozen police personnel, 10 – 15 BMC employees and some labourers barged into the centre. What looked like a routine inspection was soon transformed into a nightmare. The Kripa staff team was astounded when they were informed that the BMC had issued orders for immediate eviction of the premises. Within a matter of minutes, discipline, which is the order of the day, was replaced with chaos. In the blink of an eye everything movable in the centre was being put outside the gate of Kripa Foundation. There was no place for dialogue or discussion – Patients, some of them hallucinating, others in various stages of withdrawals, most of them in a state of physical depletion, were forced to give up their beds, chairs and other pieces of furniture where they were resting.

The mayhem did not stop here; the documentation and accounts offices also housed in the premises were not spared. Computers were dismantled; files, folders and other records including research material gathered over the last 2 decades were dumped into bags and moved out of the centre. The kitchen was next to bear the brunt. Pots, pans, spoons, knives and other cooking accessories were moved outside the gates. The orders from the BMC authorities were evident – empty the place at any cost. The medical department was also devastated. Medicines were just thrown into bags and moved out of the premises.

The police team was comparatively civilized and well behaved. Ironically, they were there to insure that law and order was maintained. However, the attitude of the BMC officials and employees was extremely condescending. They had no thought at all of the inconvenience being caused to the patients. Their behaviour was INHUMAN towards both the staff as well as the patients.

Being a residential facility, Andheri was home to many a staff; 14 to be precise. All these staff along with the patients were literally thrown on the roads by this callous act.

On learning of the emergency it was the Vasai centre that stepped up and offered to accommodate all the staff and patients. Trucks were hired and all the effects of the Andheri centre, namely food grains, office equipment, computers, furniture, etc. were loaded to be moved to the Vasai rehabilitation centre. Patients were also transported from Andheri to Vasai in these trucks. Very soon, the de-addiction centre which has given a push-start to thousands of addicts and alcoholics over the last 18 years was reduced to cartons, bags, walls and floor.

Today, despite having a capacity of only 40 beds, the Vasai centre has 51 patients apart from the staff. The centre is doing its best to manage the overload quite efficiently without complaint.

Such heartlessness from the elected guardians of our society, against an institution, which has been bending backwards for more than a quarter of a century to eradicate the scourge of addiction and alcoholism from this very same society, is beyond human comprehension. For the BMC it may have been just another day of work; but the trauma and tension that they caused to so many patients in the process will take a long time to overcome, if ever…………..

Submitted by
Gauri Karkhanis
Jimi Amore