This is an article Michael wrote for a local newspaper.

"My Visit to India" - Helping Those Who Suffer

My name is Michael Mc Cabe. I am 52 years of age. In 1996 I went to India for the first time, actually it had been my intention to visit India for the last twenty years, but with one thing and another I never seemed to find the right time to go. I had arrived as a tourist but when I saw people living in such poverty, it made me feel for those people, in particular the people who were suffering from leprosy.

Walking in Delhi I came across a husband and wife, they both suffered from leprosy, the husband was pulling a small trolley with his wife sitting in the back I noticed that the husband had no fingers and was blind in one eye, it really touched me how the man was struggling to help his wife while he was having such a difficulty, the wife was in a very pitiful condition, I gave them some money but it seemed that more was needed to be done for such people.

That night in the YMCA I found myself crying for those poor souls, it surprised me because until then, very little in life had touched me, I was, and I can honestly say a very selfish person. Later after seeing many peoples living in distress, I felt that I should make an effort to help in some way.

Shortly after this, when back in the U. K. I met Mr T ersem Lal, a very caring man, who runs a Wolverhampton based charity called the Divine Onkar Mission.

Tersem is a man who does know the suffering that the poor of this world have to live under each day, and has made it his life's mission to do as much as he can, to help those who cannot help themselves. Later I went back to India with the mission to do projects and at one time stayed on a leprosy colony with the people for ten days, living day and night with those suffering people made me realise just how fortunate I was to be relatively heath. Living in one of their houses, I ate with them, laughed with them, cried with them, done what little I could for them, and was told how they had come to live on the colony.

Some had been very educated people and some very poor, some had lost limbs as well as family, homes and friends, it was then that I started to use the phrase the forgotten people, because this was how I had come to see them.

I have come to believe that to really help those people who suffer from leprosy then we have to help the next generation to move into society, through education and other factors, and this is exactly what Divine Onkar Mission are doing, by running an orphanage, which does have a cross section of children, from many different back-grounds, gradually we are seeing that children who come from a leprosy back-ground are loosing the stigma of the terrible disease, I might add here that these children do not have the disease, and very often it is only one person in a family who has the disease.

Divine Onkar Mission does many projects for the poor of India, and if you feel that you would like to help in any way, either by donating money or giving practical help in this country or in India, or maybe you would like to sponsor a child for as less as £10 a month, perhaps you would like to sponsor a water well, precious life giving water that we take for granted, can help in eradicating diseases.