Feb 2003

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RW DGM's Message for Feb 2003

In the last few weeks I have visited the two ends of my jurisdiction to attend Installation Meetings in Hyderabad and Cochin, besides others.

In these two cities, I found our Brethren active in the practise of relief, in the visits I made with some of the Brethren to the recipients of their aid.

In Hyderabad the Brethren of St. John’s Lodge is assisting the Krushi a Charity founded by Alumini of the Sainik School at Begumpet who are in turn aiding charities for the rehabilitation of street children, as well as helping educate young girls of a minority community in the slums.

We visited a home where the street children were housed who were either found as rag pickers or as beggars at public places, and rehabilitated. They are housed in a rented accommodation, taught sufficiently to be able to gain entry to regular schools, and a couple of them are even training to be Hospital Technicians at a Vocational Training Institute. They are in no way restrained and are free to leave, if they so wish.

In the case of the girls in a Hyderabad ghetto, they are of the Muslim community which does not look kindly upon girls going out of their homes to study or to learn a trade. Therefore this charity has set up a classroom within the slum to prepare girls to attempt the Grade VI exam, in URDU. Attached to this is a small training center where they are teaching other girls to sew, and to do embroidery work. Both are small beginnings but well worth our support.

In the case of Cochin some Brethren of Lodge Cochin took me to the VIMALA Home for Mentally and Physically Challenged children, run by the Missionaries of Charity. It is heart-rendering to see some of the extremely retarded and physically deformed children, most of them between the ages of 3 and 10 years. It was wonderful on the other hand to see the dedication of the Sister and domestic help running the establishment seeing to the inmates’ every need in such clean and well-kept surroundings. The Lodge had voted to defray the cost of an Electric Kitchen Grinder and I was pleased to hand over their cheque for the unit to the Sister-in-charge.

These are very commendable efforts at demonstrating the distinguishing characteristic of a Freemasons’ Heart. I have advised the Brethren concerned to continue the good work but to make attempts also to have a sustained program of charitable action aimed at supporting such institutions over a period of years so that they can see the growing benefits of our initiatives of benevolence. Naturally I commend similar initiatives to other Lodges and Brethren.

R.W.Bro. K.R.N. Menon