GRACE THIRD WORLD FUND
[4-Jul-09] Timothy Babu, from our orphanage will be over in the UK and Isle of Man during August 2009. He will be speaking at a number of venues up and down the country. Churches and organisations that have a special history of supporting GTWF will be able to confirm details of when he is coming to you locally. New charity chairman Ray Richardson will be accompanying Timothy and looks forward to meeting many of these friends for the first time.
Old News...
GTWF is providing a new electricity generator for the Home which will enable power to be available on site during the regular scheduled cuts! [Aug-08]
Please note that we are now raising funds to go towards the third and final storey on the orphanage building. We had our first event last night with this specific goal in mind by way of Open Mic NIght at Peel Golf Club! Follow donation link to give to this cause. Thank you! [7-Mar-09]
-- Webmaster,
Grace Third World Fund
In 1997 Mat
thew Else and James Richardson of Peel. Isle of Man went to visit an orphanage in Rajahmundry, and met three people who literally changed their lives.
A young man called Timothy Babu, whose dream was to build an orphanage and to help the many disadvantaged children in India, and two severely disabled boys called Muddada Raju and Pudi Satyanaryana.
Muddada Raju (known as Raju) was at this time eleven years old. He had been born with a condition called congenital bilateral quadriceps contracture, which in layman’s terms means that he was born with his knee joints the wrong way round.
However, it was possible for his condition to be corrected by surgery. He had already had a consultation at the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai (formerly Madras) and the orthopaedic surgeon saw no reason why Raju should not be able to walk normally.
It would cost £2,000 to enable him. A small price to pay one might think. However, Raju’s father pulled a rickshaw for a living, and earned just a few pounds a week, and the price for his son’s surgery was far beyond his means.
Raju faced a future of joining the many beggars in the streets of India, because he would never be able to work for a living.
The problem was finance. Matthew and James came home asking themselves the question: What can we do?
The £2,000 needed for Raju’s operation was a comparatively small amount by western standards, and a concerted effort was made to raise this money as soon as possible. With the help of the Manx people, and the children of Peel Clothworkers, the local junior school, in particular, the money was soon raised.
21 May 1998 saw Grace Third World Fund officially registered as Manx Registered Charity No 727, and by the beginning of 1999, Raju had not only had his surgery, but was walking for the first time in his life.
See Pudi’s story on our sketch history.
