VUYIROLI – Chennai (Madras), India :
Vuyiroli is a Christian organisation and was founded in the year 1999 as a voluntary, non-profit, charity organisation by Rajkumar, a Christian pastor with a passion to help the poor and destitute elderly. Vuyiroli, which as a Tamil word actually means ‘Light of Life’
Vision Statement
Restoring dignity and hope in the lives of the dying and destitute poor.
Mission Statement
VUYIROLI is a Christian organization committed to promote fullness of life to the elderly by Providing a home to meet physical, emotional, spiritual and social needs of the uncared, sick, disabled, destitute elderly persons found in the city streets. Advocating the presence and value of the elderly in the society – A voice for the elderly in the society.
Bro. Rajkumar and his helpers rescue the elderly destitute from the streets of Chennai and provide them with shelter, nutritional food, clothing, medical care and recreation, providing these things with a great deal of love and affection.
This charitable organization serves the poor and dying destitute irrespective of caste, creed, religion or language.
One old gentleman, aged 70, was found paralysed, in front of the Chennai Central Railway Station. He had been brought from his native village 200 miles away, by a relative, and then abandoned. Such are some of those cared for at the Vuyiroli Home.
To help you better understand the type of persons Vuyiroli cares for, we quote from their own website:
Yesterday’s India always boasted of a joint family where children lived in their responsibility to look after old parents or grandparents.
The globalizations in economic growth and higher education (For Example IT Industries) have made the youth to leave their family circle and move to a different society for employment. This has lessened their responsibilities towards their families causing the decay of joint family system to nuclear family system abandoning their parents.
Destitute of elders could be to the various causes such as Elder Abuse by stressed children, elders thrown out of house due to property or financial matters etc. The people of the unorganized sector mostly will indulge in many social evils, causing to live a valueless life style which scatters their family. The elderly people have been the most affected to all these socio economic changes.
In 2001, one third of the elders were living below the poverty line and one third just above it, i.e. 60% of older persons are in a vulnerable situation without adequate food, clothing, medical treatment and shelter.
Elderly Destitute : Population of the elderly people, above 60 years of age is increasing at a faster rate than the general population. The annual rate of growth of the elders in India is of 3.8% per annum compared to the general population growth of 1.95%.
Number of elderly persons in India in 2001 was 77 million and in 2013 it will be 100 million.
In 2001
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75% of the elders were living in rural areas
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48.2% of elderly were women
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55% of them are widow
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73% of the elderly are illiterate
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90% of the elderly were from unorganized sector
Our own pastor has visited this work, and our church is pleased to bring it to the attention of the readers of this page of our web site. If you want to know more about Vuyiroli then click on the following link – http://www.vuyiroli.org .