JESUIT SOCIAL WORK IN KARNATAKA
Hand in hand with evangelization went social work and the fight for human rights and justice. One of the most O glorious achievements of the first batch of Jesuits is Father Muller's Hospital at Kankanady, Mangalore. Fr Augustus Muller who had trained himself in homeopathy started work on a very modest scale on a small table with a few medicines at SAC. He soon founded a dispensary at Kankanady, which through the years has grown into a well-organized hospital and earned fame as one of the best Catholic hospitals in India. Called 'Pagani Dispensary in the first decade of the twentieth century, it was renamed in memory of its founder. After the death of Fr Muller in 1910, Frs D. Gioanini, A. Cavaliere, A Rondano and M. Lunazzi as directors built up the hospital till it was handed over to the diocese in 1933.
With similar concern for the sick, Frs Beretta and Rocca started Nirmala Hospital at Marikunnu in Calicut, with many specialized branches of treatment and a training school for nurses.
In the mission stations social work took the form of cooperative societies among workers v. g. at the Cathedral under Fr Stein, at Suratkal under Fr D. Coelho. Among the poor and oppressed, it became a fight for human rights in courts and panchayats. The early missionaries not only lived like the poor, among the poor to show their solidarity with them but also tried to restore to the Kor gars and the Pulayas what society had deprived them of.
'The St Joseph's Asylum Workshops' was the result of Fr Diamanti's zeal to help converts and other poor Catholics to make a living. But the Jesuits who stood by him and continued his service thereafter his death were Br Visuvasam and Br Foglieni. They are the real stalwarts who deserve the name of founders. The orphanage and the catechumenate owe much to Br Visuvasam for his many years of dedicated and silent work. It was at his suggestion that these were opened in 1885. Br Foglieni was the guiding star from 1889 to 1931. He was the real manager over 44 years which saw ten directors including Fr Jerome Lobo, Fr Lunazzi, Br Nalato, Fr William Sequeira and Fr Ambrose D'Mello. Under the management of the Diocesan authorities today, it continues to be an efficient and useful institution, where many learn a trade and at the same time earn a living.
The Belve Agricultural Colony, an off shoot of St Joseph's Workshops, was the work of Fr William F. Sequeira. Seeing the increasing number of workers with their families and desirous of providing them with houses of their own, he acquired agricultural land and gradually settled a few families at a time. Thus from 1959 a colony grew up. During the years of its growth the virgin forest was cleared to make way for the paddy fields and banana plantations copiously watered by high powered pumps. Fr W. F. Sequeira's successors continued his policy and contributed to its firm establishment. Along with the Workshops, the Colony too was handed over to the Mangalore Diocese in 1968.
From 1923, on the same lines as at Mangalore, St Vincent's Industrials and St Vincent's Colony have grown in Calicut. It all began when Fr Alberti, the then Superior, asked Br Spinelli to help the orphans. The latter started with two sheds close to the Cathedral, Calicut, two looms and a capital of ten rupees! The proverbial seed sprouted and grew into a vast tree; ten departments including a mechanical and motor section, cement and concrete works. moulding and casting department, automobile engineering and service station. The orphanage was shifted in 1944 to a 34 acre lowland along the Colony Canal and it grew under Fr Vergottini as Director while Br Spinelli continued to serve as assistant.
- Taken from the Karnataka Jesuit Centenary, Souvenir, 1878-1978
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