Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bangalore (Agenzia Fides) – On arriving in Kerala (Thariode) in 1972, the Camillian Sisters were initially directed by Mother Celsa Bonato, who came from Italy as Novice Mistress and Superior. In 1977 a second house was opened for formation and for care of elderly women in the outskirts of Kottayam and shortly afterwards a hospital of 100 beds in the small village Chungakunnu (today the hospital provides outpatient and home care for 2,000 patients).
The Sisters crossed the border of Kerala in 1982, when the novitiate was moved to Bangalore, in Karnataka state, while the house at Thariode took in the first little girls with a disability, and soon became a real school for rehabilitation and social insertion. A second special school was opened in 1988 on the first floor of S. Camillo Hospital in Chungakunnu and later a third in the state of Orissa. In the state of Andhra Pradesh the Sisters opened a dispensary at Eluru and later at Tadepalligudem, a modern hospital (Mother Vannini Hospital) equipped to treat patients suffering from TB, AIDS and leprosy – the latter lived in about 30 small dwellings at the nearby Hope City near Ashanagar. In Tadepalligudem in 1998 the Sisters opened Mother Vannini College and School of Nursing, a beautiful spacious complex with accommodation for about 100 student nurses.
In the same period a Care Centre for women and girls affected by HIV was opened in Mangalore and a fourth special school for disabled children Consolation House at Carmelaram, (Swanthana). The most recent initiative is a Home for the elderly at Chennai, named after Fr Luigi Tezza. A total 14 Houses in 5 states and 212 local Religious, of whom 86 work abroad. The Juniorate is in the state of Tamil Nadu, with an annexed Home for the Elderly with 80 patients where young women in formation have direct experience of the Camilliam charisma. In 2008 the Delegation was elevated to a Province. (A.M.) (Agenzia Fides 3/7/2009; righe 24, parole 324)
