Experiences: Mother Theresa

Lysiane Robbiani from Switzerland spent 6 months at Mother Theresa's, finishing in March 2007. She writes of her time below:

If I would tell all of my experiences during my 6 months in Udumalpet, I would need top write many pages… I don’t have this space but I will try to be as exhaustive as I can.

I went to the “Mother Theresa Society for the Handicapped” not knowing exactly what I would find there. As it’s known, addresses taken from internet are not always reliable. I know for example of schools and universities that have their own web page but they don’t exist really… so I was ready to see anything.

However, after a long journey, the director of the special school came to collect me from the airport, 70 Km from Udumalpet. It was so kind! I met his family and only afterwards the children of the special school. Everything was fine and they welcomed me in a wonderful manner!

After a few days I began adjusting to life there. It was really nice… I had so many experiences in such a short time. It was such an enrichment! During the second week of my stay, I went with the family to their relatives in another part of Tamil Nadu. It was the beginning of my participation in the life of a family in this region and of my travels around this Indian state. I was so immersed in their everyday lives, that I learned a lot of their culture, tradition and a little bit of their language. Now the director’s family is my “Indian family”!

Lets talk now about the special school…
The children and young adults there are really wonderful! Everyone deserves a place in this page like he has in my heart, but it would be such a long text…

I am a special educator. I worked a little more than 2 years before and after University with disabled children and adults in Switzerland. Their needs are no different in Switzerland, only the educational materials are not the same. There are many children in the school, and their number is increasing very quickly.

The school in the morning begin at 9.30 with the national prayer and yoga (more like concentration and voice exercises). At 10.30 every child receives material and activities to do to improve his/ her skills. At 12.30 it’s lunchtime, then there is a break. From 14:00-14.30 there is an individual training program. Some children go home from 15.30 on. Others stay at the school even during the weekends. There is a dormitory to accommodate them.
In the evening the dinner is at 19.30.

The director organised with the “Liliane Stichtling Foundation” (a Dutch foundation) to send a delegation of children to travel to a town near the sea (12 hours from Udumalpet) where there were sports competitions for disabled children. A lot of special schools took part. We went with 10 children. We came back to Udumalpet with 6 medals! The children were so proud!

It was very nice to see how the director of the special school and his wife are struggling to give to “their special children” everything they need. There are many obstacles in India for a Christian special school and for the disabled people of every religion (in the school only one is Christian…the majority are Hindus and some Muslim). In this country, handicapped people are not recognized to be full human beings and there is much stigma and shame attached to it In this school the children receive the care, experience, human relations, individual trainings they need for their own flowering.

Nearly at the end of my experience, a volunteer came, Isis. Her presence was so nice and to discuss about the everyday life and problems with her was really interesting!

Now it’s one month I am in my country and I miss my Indian family and the children so much!

I think I can say without any doubt that this special school is really worthy to bear the name of a person who loved and helped everybody so much: Mother Theresa