In December 2010 Sister' Mary Prema as the current Superior General/CEO of Missionaries of Charity IS ONLY available for consultation on the state of the 710 institutions she is in charge of when she wants to be! Yes when I wished to remind her that there were problems in her Mumbai/Bombay/Byculla home dating back and still existent she was unavailabe for at least the next three following weeks! This CEO has no Deputy. One of the nuns from Missionaries of Charity Managing Council with whom I discussed the situation was visibly and audibly diisnterested in any problem and became furious when I said that I would xerox my letter to her Superior. Though Missionaries of Charity DO have had a website for years there was no available email contact or any Deputy who could attend to any complaint or suggestion that all other companies usually provide. This num was visibly annoyed that someone had pointed out that the five blind girls in Byculla were being ignored and neglected so much that none of them could utter a single word!
This refusal to attend to problems involving residents by simply dismissing the complainant from continuing or ever volunteering in this organisation again is a common experience when I've talked with volunteers in Calcutta.Most companies are concerned with profit but this company uses a zoo-like environment to emotionally compel generous people to donate money and in Mumbai they donated acres of items- I saw truckloads taken away in 2008 alone. People also give an undisclosed amount of money- which one ex Missionary of Charity told me amounted to thousands of dollars daily on her watch back nearly 20 years ago! But the conditions in the 'homes' remain in 1950s style and the food miserable and non- nutritous- I've tasted it! and some of it made me dry-retch!
Thank you for being brave and committed to your cause.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest service to humanity is to protect truth. Few of us have the strength to do that in the face of unyielding adversity. We may question ourselves about the need to go on, but there is only one answer.
There is no cause greater than the cause of justice.
Dear Bharat
ReplyDeleteThankyou for your words of wisdom! sally