Scottish Catholic Observer

CHILDREN from St Vincent’s Primary School in East Kilbride have the opportunity to find out more about how they are helping disadvantaged children in India.

St Vincent’s has been twinned with St Mary’s School in India, a scheme organised by Glasgow-based charity Mothers Care India.

Charity

Mothers Care India became an official charity last year, having been set up in 2008 after three Glasgow mothers were inspired by the words of Fr Joson Tharakan, a director for Mary’s Meals charity in India, who had come to Scotland to speak about his work in helping children from some of the poorest communities in India.

After much thought about what they could do to help, Patricia Lonergan (above left in photograph with schoolchildren from St Mary’s) and mother and daughter Cecilia Porchetta and Maria McDaid, decided to establish a charity, with the aim of ‘bringing hope to disadvantaged children in deprived sections of Indian society,’ many of whom have little access to education having come from families from the lowest caste.

Ms Lonergan highlighted that although Mothers Care India will always be ‘a kitchen table, family-run’ charity with virtually no overheads, it has been raising around £20,000 annually, through fundraising events and donations and is an organisation ‘firmly found in a faith culture.’

One of the ways in which Mothers Care India helps disadvantaged children in India is by sponsoring them to go to school.

School Visit

In a recent visit to St Vincent’s, Ms Lonergan was delighted to announce to the school’s headteacher Eileen Tompkins and her pupils that they were the first school to be officially twinned with an Indian school by Mothers Care India and that, through fundraising from St Vincent’s pupils, they have been able to support the education of 19 pupils at St Mary’s.

“You have helped these children have the same rights as you do,” Ms Lonergan, a parishioner of St Mary’s, Pollokshaws, told the St Vincent’s pupils. “They are now journeying towards having a better life.”

By taking Mothers Care India’s message to more schools and setting up more partnerships, Ms Lonergan hopes that the charity can ‘motivate children to look beyond their own needs and realise that they can help other children.’

“What I feel is more important than any money raised is the realisation of how much our society has and how easy it is to help others,” Ms Lonergan said. “It is a positive experience visiting the schools and I am always met with genuine interest, compassion and an eagerness to help.”

Sadly, in 2009 Cecilia Porchetta was diagnosed with malignant melanoma and died in February 2010 aged 56. Her daughters Maria, Angela, Sarah, Carla and Chiara have continued the work she started. It is part of the charity’s mission that Cecilia’s ‘example of love in attitude and deed, inspired by her faith in Jesus Christ, will carry on as a legacy that continues to bear fruit after she is gone.’

— To find out more about Mothers Care India, visit the charity’s website at: http://www.motherscareindia.org.

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