a tempo

October 2007

»Shanti Leprahilfe« of Dortmund celebrated its 15th birthday in June 2007. That alone would have been a reason to celebrate with all the people working in connection with this as the help they offer is admirable. Admirable is also their founder, Marianne Grosspietsch, who cares for the worries and the dignity of the affected people with the warmness of her heart and a contagious optimism.

SHANTI IS FOR PEACE

MARIANNE GROSSPIETSCH talking to Doris Kleinau-Metzler

Because of its close connection to poverty, the infectious disease of leprosy is known for many thousand years and still widespread in Asia, Africa and Latin America despite effective medication. Marianne Grosspietsch was confronted with the disastrous consequences of leprosy – mutilation and outlaw status – for the first time when she went to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, with her husband to see her godson more than 30 years ago. The first contacts went as far as to an adoption; and her personal confrontation with the human misery of the parents of her adoptive son in a lepers' ghetto made her wish to help some more. Meantime the charity organization Shanti-Leprahilfe Dortmund e.V. celebrated their 15th anniversary. A number of 1,500 people are provided with help and a home in three different project sites in and around Kathmandu under the care of native aides whose parents often had lived in the leprosy ghetto. An outpatient clinic, a nursing station for severely handicapped people, workshops for disabled and poor people, residential huts, a school and a kindergarten, a kitchen and not at last farming facilities for organic fruit and vegetables, originated out of an impulse of Marianne Grosspietsch, who is, again and again, moved to help the Shanti project by “the sheer delight to perceive life in its full diversity and to experience a community”. She was one of the 1000 women collectively nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.

Doris Kleinau-Metzler | Mrs Grosspietsch, can you remember how everything began?

Marianne Grosspietsch | The first impulse of all was certainly my children; we wanted to raise them liberally and so we got involved with our godson. After our son’s high school graduation we visited our godson’s parents in the leprosy ghetto – his father had lost his hands and feet and got blind as he had not been treated for the illness, and he was so immeasurably sad not to be able to see his son whom they had given in our care. That touched my soul…I had studied theology and Jewish studies for some terms with much pleasure; but I realised that if I wanted to be my true self I could not ignore the sentence Jesus said: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

DKM | Why is Leprosy so difficult to fight?

MG | Leprosy is actually a nervous disease which can nowadays be medicated with antibiotics and will then not be contagious any more. Most people think that leprosy is a skin disease because at first you will see spots on the skin; even some years after infection; and these spots are numb, that means painless. Dirt can penetrate into these spots on the occasion of the smallest of injuries; bacteria will grow until they reach the bone and destroy it. Muscles will contract thus forming claw hands; moistness can stay between the fingers giving rise to smelling wounds; this again attracts rats and this leads to cruel consequences for the sick. That is why it is extremely important to us to carefully treat the wounds although there are no leprosy-affected people in our institution any more. A lot of people there are marked for life. They cannot understand their situation and ask questions such as “Where is my nose when I will be healed?” It is true: this disease is still there, in the small villages in remote regions, for instance. The national health system does hardly work, and we have no access to those regions.