Unsere Kirche

August 27, 2006

"The Door of Hope" for the Poorest of Poor

SOCIAL COMMITMENT

A Dortmund citizen, Marianne Grosspietsch, established the "Shanti Leprahilfe" (Lepers' Aid) in Nepal. For many years she has stood up for the poor and ill. The 62-year old was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit on a Ribbon for her commitment.

BY ANNE-KATHRIN KOPPETSCH

If Marianne Grosspietsch had not – in 1973 – taken Puskal from Nepal to Germany, the Shanti Leprahilfe would perhaps not have come into existence.
Puskal was the Nepalese godchild of the Grosspietsch family and came from the "lepers' ghetto" which regroups all persons who are ill and no longer fit for society, persons suffering from "leprosy". Thanks to financial help from Germany, Puskal could leave the ghetto and attend one of the best boarding schools in Nepal. The boarding school director stated that the parents of other children gave him a tough time because they did not want their sons and daughters to go to a school which one from the ghetto is attending. A cursed one. A "casteless" one.

The Grosspietsch family took the boy to Germany when they returned and raised him like their own two children. There was no problem in taking the boy to Germany, since Marianne Grosspietsch and her husband knew someone who knew the King's sister, and this sister signed the application for departure.
In 1986, Marianne Grosspietsch went back to Nepal. With Puskal who had just graduated from Grammar School. Puskal met his father who still lived in the ghetto. He was blind, stank pitifully and had no more hands and feet. He did not recognize his son, and his son could not communicate with his father. A few days later, he passed away.
Marianne Grosspietsch was haunted by these impressions. She interrupted her studies of Judaism and Theology and went to find a solution for improving the outcasts' situation in Nepal. In 1989, the first leprosy facility was founded.
Three years later, Mrs Grosspietsch rented a house in Kathmandu where the beggars were sitting - next to the Pashupatinath temple. She commissioned a local doctor. This was the birth of the "Shanti-Leprahilfe" (leprosy aid facility).
"I started with 1,000 German marks. The first step was a fashion show with clothing from Nepal in the Dortmund Reinoldinum," Marianne Grosspietsch said. When the Pashupatinath temple area was declared a World Cultural Heritage, she went somewhere else and rented a hotel, the new Centre which now includes two villages. There are workshops in which disabled persons manufacture textiles, jewellery and handicraft, a kindergarten, hospital and outpatient ward. The inhabitants grow their own fruit and vegetables under ecological requirements with which they feed the many villagers.
Today, around 1500 people live on this land. It is no longer the lepers, but disabled, other sick or poor people and refugees. Nobody is rejected by Marianne Grosspietsch, but they should not "drink abusively, steal or use violence." Whoever wants to come and stay must be ready to contribute to the community: "work in a workshop, baby-sit for a disabled child, help prepare meals."
Sometimes, it is she who brings new inhabitants. Slave boys doing housework in rich families whenever the lady of the home is impure, having her menstrual. Old people dying in the street, throw-away children cast out by their families because of a disability.
She is especially proud that many of the ghetto children have eventually assumed responsible posts in the leprosy facility today. One of Puskal's mates from their childhood days has become a managing director. A former ghetto girl, an adult now, is Grosspietsch's assistant.