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Father Fleming Foundation
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Jan 4, 2005
Dear George, Jack, and all Friends of India members,
It was great to meet many of you at the RPCV convention in Chicago this past summer! Gerry and I were asked to provide some information about the Father Fleming Foundation, a non-profit charity we started in 1997 upon the death of our dear friend, Fr. Anthony Fleming. I want to first say a little about Fr. Fleming.
We first met 'Tony' (As he insisted to be called) in 1971 while working as Peace Corps Volunteers in India. He'd already been in India for 23 years at that time! Although our primary focus was science teacher training, we got involved with some of Tony's projects and worked with him on a small scale when we were PCVs. He was a truly remarkable person with boundless energy and he initiated so many worthwhile projects for the poor and needy of Orissa. After my Peace Corps service, I subsequently visited him 4 times in India.
Some background information on Tony:
- Born: Dudly, England in 1922
- Ordained an SVD missionary priest in Techny, Il. in 1947.
- Sent to eastern India (Orissa state) in 1948.
- Worked among tribals developing churches, schools, wells, etc. in remote villages, and putting people in place to make these self-sustaining.
- Later worked with lepers creating colonies & giving medication.
He lived a simple life --all of his material possessions fit in one trunk. He always lived in one small room. But he was a man of limitless energy, always on the go. He moved around in an old diesel-powered jeep with no starter. At night it was parked on an incline facing east with the hood up so that the sun would warm it in the morning and it could be push-started!
In 1993, on our return trip to India, Gerry asked Father Tony if he was going to retire, he looked at him quizzically and he replied, " I hope to die here doing what I am doing now." It was almost like retirement was a concept that had never entered his mind. The premonition Gerry had in the book The Return, turned out to be true. We never did see Father Tony again after we left his saves in 1993.
His 2nd trip to the USA was in 1997 to celebrate his golden jubilee as a priest with the 16 remaining members of his class. He had always wanted to visit friends in the US, but never had the money. He called me from LA on a Monday saying he'd be in Techny on Thursday, and asked me to please arrange transportation to the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan). Gerry and I were so happy and enthused, and we proceeded to arrange for him to take a bus up to see us. He never made it here-he died of a heart attack on the shuttle bus to the aircraft in LA. After living and working in India for 50 years, he died on foreign soil; away from the land and people he loved and did so much for. How tragic and ironic!
During Father Tony's life, he had developed a multitude of connections and sources of funding for his schools and leper colonies. The vacuum created by Father Tony's death resulted in a loss of this funding. This is what prompted Gerry & me to create the Father Fleming Foundation.
The Father Fleming Foundation helps fund Vikas Deepti, a charity in Bargarh, Orissa in eastern India now under the direction of an Indian catholic priest, Fr. John Maliekal. Vikas Deepti ("Ray of Hope") took over the management of the schools and leper colonies that Tony had been working with.
After Tony's death, I had told Gerry that filling the void left would be next to impossible, and that it would take years for anyone to develop the connections and income sources that Tony had. But I have to say that Fr. Maliekal has done an absolutely fantastic job since taking over, and, somehow, is managing to keep everything going; as well as undertaking new projects. It is truly inspiring to see his enthusiasm and dedication to these people who are at the bottom of the social and economic ladder, "The least of his brethren."
And the best thing about his work and ideas is that everything he does is aimed at releasing these poor people from the chains of their low status and poverty by empowering them to become self-reliant. The revolving loan fund allows lepers to purchase items they can use to earn a living, such as rickshaws and farm animals. The handicapped children's centre helps not only to rehabilitate children but to also give them a working skill. Wells and pumps for irrigation and drinking water not only cut down on disease, but also allow crops to be raised for food and cash. Fishponds give the lepers a food source. New housing provides lepers a means of raising their dignity and a more sanitary place in which to live with less disease. At the end of this document is a summary of all the work being carried out under the auspices of Vikas Deepti and Fr. Maliekal.
In Dec of 2003 went to India to see how our funds were being utilized. Following are parts of a letter I wrote while on my visit there that tells a lot of what I saw, and of my impressions. Some parts of my letter are not really pertinent to the Father Fleming Foundation per se, but consist of general observations about India that I think might be of interest to all FOI members. Perhaps you might possibly want to include some or all of my letter in future issues-feel free to do so.
Written Dec 23, 2003
Dear friends,
Hi and Merry Xmas from Bombay (Now Mumbai). I'd sent a long email message from Jharsuguda, Orissa a couple of weeks back but it seems that no one received it, so I'm trying again. Interestingly, the dial-up connection in Jharsuguda used pulse dialing rather than tone, but the connection speed was around 80K! I had thought that it would be kind of interesting for you all to get an email from there-oh well, I tried.
It's 5:30 pm on Dec 23, and temp is about 80°F. Nights have been around 65-70°. This is actually the coolest it's ever been when I've visited Bombay. Mitzi & I arrived in India on Nov 28, having left home on Thanksgiving Day. That turned out to be a good day to travel, as the plane across the Atlantic (we went via Paris) was only about 20% full. However, from Paris to Bombay, the flight was 100% full.
I spent my second week in India here in Orissa, having first travelled by the super fast 'Gitanjali-Howrah' Express from Bombay to Jharsuguda, taking a mere 24 hours each way. I traveled 2nd class 2-tier A/C with compartments of 4 + 2 =6 people. I actually switched berths to allow an old man to be with his family. There were only 3 of us in our compartment. In the usual manner, meal orders were taken at one station, and then, several stations later, the meal appeared. I had Chicken curry. At Nagpur, an older couple got on, and someone got off, so we then had four in our compartment. I gave the old lady my lower berth & moved to top, since she couldn't climb up. It was very cold up there as the A/C was blowing right on me. I had to wear my polartec jacket & a blanket to keep warm! Doesn't sound like India! Things ARE changing here. Of note: on the trip both ways, at least 50% of passengers were using cell phones all during the journey. Cell phones are everywhere now, even in Orissa! I was in the minority without one.
I arrived in Jharsuguda, the closest stop to my final destination, at 6:15 am, 45 minutes late. I was reminded of a sign I'd seen at a railway station in Orissa some years ago while traveling with Gerry and Joe (another former India PCV) which read: "Trains running late are likely to either make up or lose time". It was one of those Indian-English ditties that can only make sense to you and be appreciated if you have lived in India for a while, and we all had a roaring laugh at it! I was met in by a priest, Fr Anuranjan Dung Dung (This is not a joke!), a man of about 32 years of age; very nice guy, originally a tribal from near Roulkela. He is overseeing the leper colonies and handicapped centre while Fr Maliekal is on leave in Rome for six months.
Anyway, we spent three days in Bargarh where these facilities are located. We stayed at the handicapped centre for children, called 'Vikas Bhavan' which means something like 'Development Home'. I have to say that it's really a humbling experience to see this place. Kids are aged 5 to 15, and most have leg problems, a few with other problems. Most are dragging themselves around using their hands for propulsion, often wearing their sandals on their hands. Anyway, this place makes crutches, braces, artificial legs, wheelchairs, etc., for them. Also, an orthopedic doctor (From Sambalpur) comes weekly and performs corrective surgery free of charge. The kids are mostly Hindus, and go home for a one-month holiday each year. Otherwise, they stay in a hostel that is part of the complex. Three nuns, Fr. Maliekal, and a lay handicapped guy, John Barla, who Fr Fleming mentored, run the place.
On one Sunday, they put on a competition programme of song, dance, story telling, and games for which I was designated the chief guest. Having been thus designated, I was asked to give a speech in Oriya, which I reluctantly did (It was very short!). Anyway, I was told that it was perfect and everyone understood, which may or may not be true. But it was wonderful to see how happy these kids were in spite of all their problems. They even played musical chairs, or should I say musical bricks? Bricks were arranged in a circle in the soft sand, and music played whilst these children hobbled and dragged themselves around until it stopped and they tried to find a brick to sit on! It was, indeed, a very very moving site for me. I have tears in my eyes just recounting it here. But they all enjoyed it immensely.
I was received like a king everywhere I visited in Bargarh. At each of the leper colonies, I was greeted with song and dance and marigold garlands around my neck, and high tea. Good progress seems to be being made in these colonies. There are about ten blocks of new concrete houses (2 rooms, bedroom and kitchen/living) with six houses in a block. These were given to those who were living in the worst-shape huts. All in all, the colonies are being kept very clean, and many lepers are now in gainful employment, raising pigs, goats, and as rickshaw ballas (wallas). The incidence of disease is definitely decreasing, and one of the nuns spends all of her time treating lepers.
The road from Sambalpur to Jharsuguda (in fact all the way to Rourkela) is very good (a toll road) and was made with a World Bank loan and foreign help. I had a driver and a jeep for the time I visited the area. Saw several old friends in Sambalpur, which has now grown to nearly three hundred thousand! It was difficult to recognize anything there. I visited a leper colony in Jharsuguda and a mentally handicapped centre there. I Also went up to near Rourkela to Fr. Anurunjan's village and met his parents & siblings. Interestingly for me, the main employment of the village is a nearby limestone quarry--a very big one, which we also had a look at.
By the time I left, my Oriya had come back quite a lot. I found it interesting that even a lot of words I'd completely forgotten somehow started popping up in my brain on their own. I got a couple of books on learning Oriya, and a tape also. I have to get ready for Puri, Orissa in Jan 2006! (Our Peace Corps group's next planned reunion).
There's so much to say about India; so much that's changed, and so much that hasn't. Bombay air is definitely a lot cleaner than five years ago, as they have instituted strict pollution laws on busses, cars, and auto-rickshaws. Busses and Ricks are being converted to propane. Traffic is a mess, as there are just way too many vehicles for the roads. (Traffic in Orissa was not bad). However, I made a visit to Poona, and between Bombay and there, there is a new six-lane limited access toll way on which only cars, busses, and trucks are permitted; and it was very nice and fast. Plastic bags have become the bane of the country, since they do not decompose. In Bombay, they are using garbage pick-up trucks, so there are no piles of garbage on the streets anymore (Well, very few).
There's so much more to say, but I'm tired of typing now, so that will have to wait for later.
ADDED DEC 30, 2003, 1:00 PM FROM GLADSTONE, MI.
Obviously, we're now back home safe and sound. It seemed a very l o n g trip back, taking exactly a day and a half. Got home at 1:30 am today. Flew Mumbai - Milan - Chicago, then drove home (another 5½ hours). Our flight came in 5 hours late. Milan - Chicago was 10½ hours in the air. Oh well, all part of the fun. At least, for once, our baggage was nearly the first out and we cleared immigration and customs in record time.
And also of crows (not certain of the connection)! And, for some reason, they believe they're roosters and begin cawing at 4:30 am every morning; and there are a lot of them and they make the most irritating racket imaginable! I had to get up and shut the windows at that time each day, in order to sleep.
The old sleepy suburb of Bandra, is now a hustling, bustling city onto itself. Traffic there, and throughout Mumbai, will still amaze and astound even hardened ones such as me. I still would never take it upon myself to attempt driving there. This time, we did a lot of car traveling in the city, and I tried to surmise some semblance of order in the traffic patterns and habits, but to no avail. I just could not figure out when you should yield (rarely, if ever), when you should stay in a particular lane (rarely, if ever), when you are allowed to pull out in front of oncoming traffic (almost always), when you should straddle two lanes (almost always), or when the honking of a horn (I believe most are wired directly to the ignition switch, so as to honk continuously) means anything more than to say "Hello World" or "I think I can irritate you even a little bit more than you already are". I guess the closest to any rule I could come up with is that busses and trucks usually can do as they please (in other words, follow no rules whatsoever). And then there are the motorcycles, usually with two or three riding, bicycles (same), and auto rickshaws which, at any rare stoplight where all of these mysteriously somehow know they will actually heed and stop at, will squeeze and wriggle their way into any gap between vehicles into which they can possibly mange to fit. The end result puts sardine packing to shame, and should be studied by mathematicians working on packing theory. I believe scientists place the density of this glob of vehicles just next to black holes in the order of most dense objects in the universe. Yes, even if you've experienced India traffic before, your mouth will still be agape. And I never even mentioned pedestrians, dogs, or cows. The truly amazing thing is that, somehow, this seems to work!
In some areas, what the west would call progress is being made. The sleepy tiny village of Jhankarpali, Orissa, where several Peace Corps and Oxfam Volunteers worked with Baban Pradhan back in the 1970's has changed. You can be the judge as to better or worse.
(As a side, I only learned in early November-by email!-that Baban had died in 2001. I had planned on visiting him this trip. I still visited the village and his sons).
Jhankarpali now has electricity. Only seven of the homes do not have televisions. Some tractors are being used for farming instead of bullocks. People have cell phones. Baban's son, Prakash, who now operates the farm, will have a computer and an email connection soon. The road is still made of mud, and no one has a car, but several have scooters.
I guess I need to actually write an entire book on this whole thing, so I'll quit at this point. I hope you've found this interesting. I'm sure that those of you you've lived in India will have enjoyed it. For the rest of you, I'm hoping that you did!
Tom
Next, is a summary of the work being done by the Vikas Deepti charity that is partially funded by the Father Fleming Foundation (FFF) that Gerry and I oversee. I want to mention that 100 percent of the money collected by the FFF goes directly to the people in need. There is no overhead whatsoever taken off the top. We have funded this in the past with donations taken up at talks we have given and by proceeds from Gerry's two books, The Return (About his first trip back to India after 20 years) and The Third Plate, a work of fiction, both of which are available from him. Anything that FOI can do to help us in funding the FFF will be greatly appreciated.
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Vikas Deepti
February, 2004
Funds a hospital, schools, three leper colonies, and a handicapped
children's facility in Orissa.
Vikas Bhavan ('Development Abode')-home for the physically handicapped.
Founded by Fr. John Maliekal June 29, 1995.
PO/District Bargarh, Orissa 768028, India
Tel: 06646/230791
Vikas Bhavan is a home away from home where the handicapped children
receive love, care, acceptance and respect through physical, mental,
intellectual and psychological rehabilitation.
For children aged 5 to 15, presently 55 children.
- Corrective surgery: Surgeon from Sambalpur/Convent Hospital (~7 per Month)
- Physiotherapy: Nuns & lay.
- Walking aids: Crutches, wheelchairs, braces, etc.
- Prostheses: Legs, arms-Made here in shop.
- Education: Provided by nuns & lay & integrated with lepers (See below).
- Vocational training: one year course for grown handicapped girls in tailoring & embroidery. They are given a sewing machine upon completion (6 now in it). Boys learn welding. Goats for raring, sewing machines, and welding machines are provided to help the handicapped learn to make a living.
Quote from Sujata Tigga, a thirteen year old girl from a remote
village who came to Vikas Bhavan crawling and now can walk and
dance with the help of calipers: "Vikas Bhavan has given me a new
birth and it has made me to stand and walk. Now I am an able person.
I am so happy now!"
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Leper Care
Presently there are three colonies in the Bargarh, Orissa Area, with
a total of 607 patients. Fr. Tony Fleming began working with two of
these colonies. The goal is to make the lepers self-sufficient so
they can earn their own living and become integrated into society as
a whole.
- Each leper family is given 1 liter of oil & 4½ Kg of Bulgar (brown wheat) each month.
- 63 totally invalid patients are given complete free food rations.
- Bored wells with hand pumps have been installed for drinking water.
- Help is provided to cultivate rice, vegetables, and trees.
- Financial support, encouragement, & training is provided for tailoring and driving.
- Revolving loan scheme for purchasing rickshaws, pigs, & goats (110 loans to date, with no defaults so far)
- Weekly clinics are held providing bandages & medication.
- Free medical help & hospitalization are provided. One nun devotes 100% of her time to this.
Jamurda Colony: Off the main road from Sambalpur just before entering Bargarh.
- 60 new houses provided, each with 2 rooms of 12 ft X 10 ft. 10 of these from funds
from the Fr. Fleming Foundation.
- A Fish pond is being dug.
- Goats are being reared.
- Rickshaws are being used.
Ruhunia Colony: Adjacent to Vikas Bhavan in Bargarh.
- Electric pump, well, & storage tank for irrigation & drinking water
(Fr. Fleming Found)
- Rearing goats
- Using Rickshaws
- Sour lime ('limbu') orchard
Jeera Colony: On the outskirts of Bargarh past the cremation area near the river. This is the latest colony to come under the umbrella of Vikas Deepti.
- Raring of goats and pigs
- Using rickshaws
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Click on photos to enlarge.
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Education
Nuns and lay teachers in schools in various locations, and outreach programs.
- Lower primary school (To grade 3) @ Jamurda (Fr. Fleming School)
(21 leper children students)
- Lower primary school (To grade 3) @ Jeera (12 leper children students)
- Primary school: At Vikas Bhavan itself for handicapped children. Also, Ashirbad hostel @
Ruhunia for leper students studying here (9 leper children students stay here)
- High school: Madhupur government high school. Madhupur hostel is attached to this school
(9 leper children students & 12 handicapped students)
- Some students from the leper colonies are also in nearby M.E. and high schools. They are
staying with their parents, but being monitored and helped by Vikas Deepti.
- Educational assistance is also being given to 120 very poor but normal children in terms of
books, uniforms, study materials, etc.
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New Projects Planned and Underway
Quotes from the December, 2004 India Eastern Province SVD Newsletter by Fr.
Anarunjan Dungdung:
Vikas Bhavan is aiming for greater heights as the newly built workshop for
"tricycles and wheelchairs" is ready to venture into the noble task of providing necessary appliances
for the handicapped children and the needy. .The work that the institution has done is really
incredible.
From a letter written to me by Fr. John Maliekal dated November 11, 2004:
Mr. Tom, .It was a pity that I could not be here when you visited
Bargarh. I really missed you. Now I am back and have resumed my work.
Our colony people are making steay progress-still I would have liked that
they took education seriously. Girls, once they reach puberty, are out of
control, and the parents want them to get married before they run away.
Boys want an easy life. So goes life in the colonies. We have given
agricultural loans to 40 families. All the money will come back.
Thank you for the 3000 dollars. We got the money as you have come to know
from our email. My dream is to begin another thirty houses. The money I
have collected is not even enough for ten houses. But I wish and pray for
the whole amount (which is in other's pockets). However, dreams are good-it
is the beginning stage!!! Dear Tom that is all for the moment. Once more
wishing you threesome all the best and thanking the Lord for all the three
of you and the members of the Fr. Fleming Foundation, I remain yours
sincerely, Fr. John Maliekal.
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