Aravanaikkum karangal

History and Service

ARAVANAIKKUM KARANGAL OUR VISION Re-Building the lives of the Broken Hearted and Downtrodden People THE FOUNDER: Rev.John.F.Solomon is a theologian from the institute of HBI who was dedicated to ministry at his birth by his parents. He, with his family was working with the tribal children of Gujarat for about 14 years. He was in charge of about 400 students in the home for which he was the project manager. Considering his service of 14 years to the tribes of Gujarat, he was given an Ordination in the year 2001 by the CSI (Kanyakumari Diocese). He was constantly disturbed by the sufferings of the children in his native.
In the widespread population of India, there are people numbering in lakhs that fall in the category of orphans, destitute, bonded labors, Aids affected families, blinds etc. The list of people longing for love, care and affection seem to be never ending. We were continuously disturbed by the sufferings of these people, of which we were made aware through Newspapers, Journals, T.V. and other means of media. We took survey of the people falling in this criteria and started visiting those that required immediate attention. We met them personally and gave the little help we could. But their need was too great that we decided to dedicate our full time in serving them. After which we decided to do the same work in our native, Tamil Nadu.We started a home for the children under the name "Aravanaikkum Karangal" which means "Hands of Comfort".

OUR HOME:

It is a rented building in the heart of the city. Apart from the children, we as a family live in that building. The building serves both as the home and an office. So, we live as one family rather than in separate blocks as other hostels. This enables the children to mingle with us without any structural hurdles. We started this home on September 02,2002 with just 2 inmates. This home has been growing ever since then. We have no looking back. As on date we have 30 children. We provide them with all that they need. We see them growing both physically and spiritually day by day.

ABOUT CHILDREN:

The children staying here are mostly from the districts of Salem, Namakkal, Dharmapuri and Erode. We come to know of the needy through area pastors, Village elders, schoolteachers and our well-wishers. Then we follow a procedural survey and scrutinization of the child's background. If it is found satisfactory (i.e.) if the child is definitely in need of help then we take them. We are faced with situations where we turn down the admissions of the needy and deserving cases all because we are living in a rented building. More over we are financially restricted from taking in more students. We everyday encounter with children who are void of a meagre meal per day. FINANCIAL RESOURCE: We raise the funds required for doing this ministry by sharing about it in schools and churches. Further friends and well wishers also help us. Some help us by giving cash and other give it as the needed materials. In spite of all these people helping, it's not sufficient to do the service efficiently. But still God has enabled us to come this far. We are now facing a financial crisis that stops us from taking in more of the deserving cases. We are forced to reject these cases due to financial instability. We have no concrete funding bodies as such that could support us fully. We are fully dependant on the well-wishers in and around the area. There are about 60 families. But its not useful as the donation reaches us at different time. The rent amounts up to Rs.4000/. If we go for cheaper rented buildings then we are forced to go to the outer regions of the city. In this case we are in need of a vehicle for the transportation of our children. We request you to pray for these needs, through which we can help many more

Case History and Future Plans

CASE HISTORY:

Here are the case histories of some of the children we have. Almost every child has a sorrowful background. Gayathri aged 11,is one of our inmates. Her father was HIV/Aids patient. On hearing this, Gayathri's mother deserted the family leaving Gayathri alone with her father, who was suffering from the dreaded disease. With no one to take care of, Gayathri future became insecure. As fate would have it, her father died the very next week she came and joined us. Bhuvaneshwari is an orphan who is doing her 8th std. Her father was electrocuted to death and within a month her mother committed a suicide. She was left alone with her elder brother. The relatives became a snare to them as they had lot of property. But as no one was willing to take care of them, their lawyer left her here. Her brother is a bright student but due to financial instability, he was forced to discontinue his studies and work in a mine. But now with a little help from us and with his earnings, he is now doing his BA.

OUR MAIN MINISTRIES:
	Home for children
	Awareness program
	Gospel work
	Church Ministry, Village outreach Ministry, Fasting Prayers, Bible study

Community Development program in 2 places (slums) Self- employment Training and help Separate homes for boys and girls (100 each) To construct a church To start prayer cells in several places

BREIF REPORT OF THE SOCIETY EVILS TAKEN CARE OF: BONDED LABOURS:

In India, especially in Salem, Namakkal and Erode this is a common practice. Parents due to poverty, pledge their children to silver shops, power looms etc. These children are then left behind to work all their lives for a meager sum of money they have been bargained for by their parents. Such children are burdened with excess of work, starvation, improper care and they are denied the rights to live a happy childhood. They are not allowed to have even the basic education. We meet such families and counsel them against it and help them by rescuing those children and sheltering them in our home. HIV POSITIVE (AIDS): AIDS, the dreaded disease of all has around 75 lakhs of its victims in India and the state of Tamil Nadu ranks 3rd in the survey. The HIV positive cases inside Tamil Nadu are dominant in the districts of Salem, Namakkal, Dharmapuri.People affected by AIDS later become a broken family with the children deserted and no one to take care of them. Their very own relatives neglect them. They are restricted from using the common places even from having a drink of water. We help them by giving protein powders, Medicines, grains etc. We create awareness among them about nutrition, hygiene and healthy living. Often the healthy children of the affected families are deserted because of the misconception that they too might have it. We take these children into our home after a medical check-up. We now give more concentration in this area. Survey shows that there are 1,20,000 children below 15 years of age whose parents have died of Aids. About 5 to 10% of children are orphaned by Aids in India. In the world, every 14 seconds a child is orphaned due to Aids. VISUAL HANDICAPS: In India, around 1crore people are handicapped in vision alone. We help them in self-employment by means of chair re-caining, Weighing scale machines, phone booths, toy sales etc. We also help them in getting the Govt, aids such as bus pass, train pass. There are tragedies where the entire family is born blind. One of the families in the village we minister, 5 children are blinded from birth. They don't have a father and their mother is bed ridden due to illness. They have no one to take care of them. A 23-year-old girl of this family committed suicide due to her family situations. We Minster counsel and provide guidance among such people. DESTITUTE: Due to poverty, lack of food and shelter, we find many children roaming around as street pickers and beggars. Children from broken families, drunkard fathers, and widows are also helpless. Such children are huge in number. Although we don't take all of them into our homes we take those that we find satisfactory. FEMALE INFANTICIDE: It is an inhuman activity-taking place in the Salem and Namakkal districts. The parents, when a girl child is born, kill them as infants. They do so because they feel that bringing up a girl and getting her married is an unnecessary expense as they won't be able to earn. They consider the girls as a member of the family who only eats and not earns. We hold counseling program among such groups and enlighten them against such things. GOSPEL WORK: Apart from the social work, we do gospel work in several places, especially in Salem and Namakkal districts. We have a worship center and six prayer cells. Every Sunday morning at 9.30 a.m. we have Sunday worship. Every Friday we have fasting prayer and bible study during the Saturdays. We are planning to extend our church and village ministry to nearby areas. ARAVANAIKKUM KARANGAL is just a group of dedicated people who go in search of such needy people and through their hardships and struggle, bring these people to lead a healthy, prosperous and a meaningful life. It strives to make them taste the love of God and live as one with the society. ARAVANAIKKUM KARANGAL was registered in the year 2002(Reg. No.432/2002), It has been recognized by the Govt. of India as a registered public charitable trust under section 12AA of income tax act 1961.We also have 80G(5)(VI), the income tax exemption number (9755(62)/2004-2005). We are looking for like-minded organizations with whom we can merge and do the service in larger scale. Contact Details: Rev.John Solomon Founder and chairman ARAVANAIKKUM KARANGAL 369,Subramaniam Nagar Extension Opp.St.Joseph's convent Suramangalam, Salem-636005 Tamil Nadu, India Cell: - 93621-223111 Ph: - 0427-3951402 aravanaikkum@rediffmail.com rev_jfs@yahoo.co.in