Works outside Karnataka

 St Joseph's Industrial School, Ooty

On becoming a Vice-province, Karnataka Jesuits began to spread out to other dioceses. In 1959, at the request of Bishop Padiyara of Ootacamund, Jesuits took up St Joseph's High School and St Joseph's Industrial School. After ten years of steady work and improvement, the former was handed back to the diocese, but the Industrial School and the Boys' Home continue to be our responsibility. From Fr J. Zambon to the present Director, Fr C. Mariaraj, the period has been one of steady progress in spite of adverse circumstances which demanded love, zeal and tact. The school owes much to Fr Lawrence P. Colaco for his 18 years of direction and help. Brothers of the caliber of B. Simonetto and J. Germek, have with their mechanical skill, made the Industrial School a name to reckon with among industrial concerns, while Brother Dudley Pereira made the Boys' Home a veritable home. The purpose of the Industrial School is to train poor, orphan and destitute boys particularly of the Nilgiri Hills and to fit them for some definite avocation in life. While the Boys' Home shelters and supports the 110 inmates and attends to their moral and spiritual needs, the Industrial School offers them a three- or five-year course in carpentry and cabinet making as required by the Department of Employment and Training for a Government Diploma.

Being 'destitute', the boys themselves or their parents are unable to contribute anything towards their maintenance. The government grant of Rs. 18/ for some and Rs. 50/ for others does not carry us a long way. The deficit is met partly by the sale of articles of furniture or the income from the WOODWORKS which are located at Kakatope. Although under ideal conditions the income from the saw mills of Kakatope can be good, yet with power-cut, high wages and shortage of logs actually the surplus is meagre. The Nilgiris Jesuit Educational and Charitable Society is thus left with a heavy financial burden. But the fact that the beneficiaries are the poorest of the poor, has created the conviction that the Institution must be maintained. Every year about 20 boys go out with a certificate and a box of carpenter's tools to begin life on their own.

To recount and elaborate on the social work undertaken by individuals, though a pleasing task would be beyond the scope of the present article. However, one cannot fail to mention the name of Fr Emmanuel Coelho. While being a Professor of English at St Aloysius College, he started numerous works for the needy. His Bene Morienti Sodality for workers who were prone to drink, or the care of the lepers who would not live at Fr Muller's leprosarium but preferred to beg, or the Poor Girls' Dowry Fund, or the Institute of Maids of Nazareth for the service of the poor are a few among them. The Sodality of Bene Morienti continues to this day under the guidance of Fr Lawrence D'Souza of St. Aloysius College. Fr Bertram Siqueira has inherited the mantle both of his brother late Fr Joseph Siqueira and Fr Emmanuel Coelho who worked for the lepers. In addition to this, he continues the hidden work of Fr John Peter Noronha in whom the poor boys of the St Aloysius College and High School and the patients of the Government Hospitals of Mangalore found a refuge and an understanding heart in their time of need.

An institutional social work suited to our days is what the Evening Schools and Colleges do in Mangalore and Bangalore which are a boon to working men and women inasmuch as they enable them to obtain a better qualification to improve their status or condition in life. The Housing Scheme of St Joseph's Seminary, under the leadership of Fr Valerian D'Souza, has seen to the rehabilitation of a hundred families displaced by floods, channelling aid and supervising its employment to the greatest advantage of the beneficiaries. Nehrunagar as a housing service at Ullal has been constructed on a part of the property owned by St Aloysius College while yet another part of the property in the same place is earmarked for the Social Service Centre on the occasion of the Centenary for rehabilitating the physically handicapped. In the formation of young Jesuits at Mount St Joseph (Novitiate), the seed for social concern is being sown early by involving them in the movement for liberation through the Social Service Centre of Kalena Agrahara and the neighbouring villages in Bangalore South.

- Taken from the Karnataka Jesuit Centenary, Souvenir, 1878-1978