Florence Home Foundation
HELP FOR ELDERY
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Aged people are very vulnerable in the Indian society: neglected or even rejected by their families, they do not earn any income and most of them are reduced to begging.
The traditional status of the widows can be blamed here. After the death of her husband, she is sometimes almost considered as dead (that fact is illustrated by the custom, now prohibited, of the ‘sati’, where the widow is meant to throw herself in the funeral fire of her husband). She does not have the right to a social existence anymore, the attributes of the femininity (ankle chains, flowers, jewels) are prohibited to her and she is reputed to carry misfortune to her close relatives. So she is often abandoned by her family.
Moreover, in India, the governmental pensions and assistance almost do not exist and the system of dowry puts a heavy financial load on families without any counterpart (they pay to marry their daughter, who will live in her step-parents house). Having only daughters often leads to a situation of total indigenceonce parents are too old to work.
These people are welcome for every lunch by Florence Home Foundation which provides them a nutritious meal. |
TSUNAMI WORK
During the first emergency phase after the tsunami, Florence Home Foundation distributed drinking water and rice as well as first aid kits (kitchen utensils, clothing, and bed furniture) to the affected populations. It also provided volunteers to clean the fragments and dusts lying on the ground in the tsunami-affected zones.
Then, after the emergency phase, FHF organized the distribution of tree saplings (palm trees, coconuts and various fruit and medicine trees) to the affected populations, to replace the trees tear off by the violence of the wave. For these populations the trees could be a source of food and construction wood, but also a source of income (a coconut tree can produce 500 coconuts per year, that can be sold 5 rupees per unit).
Moreover, FHF took charge of the desalinization and the deepening of wells and water tanks made unusable by the salt and sand that filled them. FHF also took the imitative to dig 2 kilometers of irrigation canals in the village of Muzhukkuthurai, which will profit to about 200 acres of land. In 2005 FHF also increased the practice of medical camps.
The reconstruction program consists in the building of 25 houses in the village of MGR Nagar, intended for the tribal coastal populations living there. These people are of Hindu religion, but are considered as ‘out of cast’ because of their way of life. The funding of these constructions had been made by the Fondation de France, via Emmaus International.
In 2005, FHF built nearly 500 lavatories in 15 villages in the Panruti region. For the children that were victims of this natural disaster, a ‘Child Development Centre’ was set up in the village of Muzhukkuthurai. This center provides meals for the children and frames their evening tuition.
FHF also installed ‘Tuition centers’ in 5 villages. The tuition centers are structures where the children can come to study every evening.
Additionally FHF gave regular advice to the farmers, as the rehabilitation of their lands after the tsunami needed specific care. FHF gave loans to the fish-selling women so that they could work again.
WOMEN PROTECTION
Florence Home Foundation try to protect day after day women in difficulty. FHF fight against ill treatment, and each form of violence. FHF provide help to people in precarity situation. Members of the association have an important role in this program. They are present in the daily life of all the families known and helped by the organisation.
