BELGIAN AGENCY HAS 20 YEARS EXPERIENCE HELPING INDIAN ORPHAN ADOPTIONS
The Joy Sowers, a Belgium-based group started by Franciscans, has helped with 2,500 Indian orphan adoptions and sponsored 4,000 students during the past 20 years.
Joy Sowers head Franciscan Father Joseph Nouters, who visited the eastern Indian city of Calcutta in mid-August, said coming to India is hard for him because "there is such a wide gap between the rich and the poor."
Father Nouters, 61, told UCA News he regretted that their projects had "little impact on the problem."
Father Nouters, who took over as Joy Sowers head in 1983, said the worst poverty he has seen in India is in Calcutta.
"Nowhere in India is there such abject poverty as in Calcutta," he said. "We will help but our efforts seem so little to change the situation."
Father Nouters and two assistants came here to take charge of five orphans and escort them to their foster parents in Belgium.
They also inspected ongoing Joy Sowers projects and visited children sponsored by families in Belgium.
The Franciscans organize regular follow-up programs in Belgium which bring together adopted Indian children and their foster families, he said.
The adopted children are educated, he said. One youth now practices law and many of the others are teachers. Children with minor handicaps have also found homes in Belgium through this organization, the Franciscan priest explained.
This organization, which was founded by Franciscan Father Rene Delooz, arranges for adoption of only Indian children with Belgian foster parents.
Originally the adopted children came from Cochin, Coimbatore, Madras and Madurai in southern India and Ahmedabad, western India, but now they are adopted mostly from "Shishu Bhavan" (children´s home) of Mother Teresa in Calcutta.
Shishu Bhavan started by Mother Teresa in 1955 now has 200 orphans.
Besides adoptions, 4,000 Indian children have benefited from Joy Sowers´ sponsorship programs. The children are given free books, tuition and medicals.
Father Nouters said that Joy Sowers´ housing programs for the poor now house orphans who are married and live with their families.
Joy Sowers also support schools and provide equipment to hospitals as in Trichur in southern India.
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