“In serving the best interests of children, we serve the best interests of all humanity.” – Carol Bellamy

As Sri Arunodayam celebrates 19 years of service to abandoned children with intellectual disabilities, we count our many blessings and give thanks! Our biggest blessings being the children we serve, our devoted staff, and YOU, our friend and constant support through the years. Our celebration is not so much about our organization as it is about the change you have helped us make though your commitment to our cause. YOU make it all possible!

Working with children with disabilities has taught us a valuable lesson – to never give up hope. We hope that you will journey with us into our 20th year and beyond! Your support gives us the incentive to take on larger, critical projects that help transform the lives of precious children. So, stay and grow with us in this good work!

Iyyappan Subramaniyan
Founder, Managing Trustee

19 years of loving service to children

On the 26th of February, our home was abuzz with activity as the children prepared for a long and exciting journey to Thirutheni where Sri Arunodayam has a small farm and temporary shelter. In keeping with social distancing norms to be observed during this pandemic, we decided to take them to this wide open country space where they could enjoy themselves to their hearts’ content. We left Chennai at 8:30 am and reached Thirutheni at 12:00 noon. After a sumptuous meal and delicious Indian sweets, the sporting event began with all manner of games and races. The children had a fun time and before they returned to Chennai, planted around 20 coconut and bougainvillaea saplings, bringing alive the adage, “he that plants trees loves others beside himself”. As we enter our 20th year of service, we continue to impart foundational values and principles on which our children may build healthy, responsible, and purposeful lives.

Sabari's Story

Anyone can have a child and call themselves a “parent”. But a real parent is someone who puts that child above their own selfish wants.

An innocent one month old baby boy was discarded by his parents in Adambakkam, Chennai. The story goes that a scan taken during the antenatal period revealed that the baby had defective abdominal walls (a type of congenital defect that allows the stomach, the intestines, or other organs to protrude through an unusual opening that forms on the abdomen), cystic lesions, and a deflected urinary bladder. Had they known, the parents say, they would not have carried the baby to full term. But the hospital says that the parents were aware of their child’s condition. The boy’s birth revealed new anomalies such as the absence of a lower left limb, absence of the left kidney, and a rigid scrotum. In shock, the parents abandoned him at the hospital despite receiving counselling. The mother having refused to feed her son even once! This baby needs surgery that requires his parents’ consent, but they refuse to give it.

The hospital authorities frantically searched for a home but no one was willing to accept the baby. Hearing about our work with abandoned children, they approached us and we could not say no. The child is now part of the Sri Arunodayam family. Even while he was at the hospital, two of our nurses visited him each day and underwent a special training to be able to take care of him when he got home. He is not intellectually disabled but he has very severe physical anomalies that are endangering his life.

On the 25th of February we held his naming ceremony. We searched for a name that would embody the story of his life. And we chose “Sabari” (a tributary of the river Godavari) because, like a river, love too cuts a new path whenever it meets an obstacle. And this pretty much sums up Sabari’s one-month existence here on earth. Considered an obstacle and discarded by the ones who bore him, Sabari’s path led him to a new family that loves and embraces him as their own!

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Sri Arunodayam is a secular organization with zero tolerance for discrimination against children regardless of religion, caste, race, ethnicity, disability or gender.

Sri Arunodayam Charitable Trust
Tel: 91-44-26511450; Mobile: 91-9444915803
Email: sriarunodayam@gmail.com
https://sriarunodayam.org/

19 years of loving service to children

Sabari's Story

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