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Interview by Joni Rose Diskint and Celia Jackmauh
M. Manoharan Sivakami (affectionately called Mr. Manoharan) is the director of the Mangalam Welfare Society (MWS), an organization in South India dear to our hearts at Aruna Partnership. Supported by your generous donations, MWS provides critical services for abandoned widows who are facing desperate life circumstances.
Mr. Manoharan with Kannammal and Meri, residents of the Om Shanthi Home
Celia and Joni spent many hours with Mr. Manoharan this past winter. Passionate about his work, he was eager to answer questions about this organization dedicated to helping destitute widows. We met with him at Premalaya Handicrafts, the Om Shanthi Home for elderly widows, and at two of the fifty villages he serves.
Mr. Manoharan was born into a farming family in one of these villages where, even as a boy, he felt a calling to serve his community. Today he still lives in his family home and farms 2 acres of rice that have been in his family for generations.
Mr. Manoharan’s deep roots and many connections to this place and to the people here make him uniquely suited to understanding them. “I first met Appa in 1990, and it totally changed me. I watched how Appa thought about life and I felt this was my path also. I went with him to the villages to visit the people. His influence helped me mature. He said, ‘You are my son’. He totally trusted me and gave me confidence that I could do what was being asked.” Through this connection, Mr. Manorhan felt affirmed in doing the work in these villages that others were repelled to do.
Mr. Manoharan and his wife Shiva Kami
Together holding their grandson while standing in their rice fields, an inheritance passed down through his family
Mr. Manoharan’s day begins at 5 am when he offers morning puja and then goes out to tend his rice fields. At 7 am, he heads to the Om Shanthi Old Age Home where he greets all of the residents individually and spends some time chatting with them before checking in with the staff. By 9 am he is at Premalaya Handicrafts where he attends to his daily work as Managing Director. His day is often interrupted by village elders, local police, or social workers who need his help with various emergencies.
Mangalam Welfare Society is there for people who have nowhere else to turn.
Mr. Manoharan has worked in the area for the last 40 years, initially through Shanthimalai Trust and then through the Shanthimalai Handicrafts Development Society. In 2023, the charitable aspects of the project were formally incorporated under the Mangalam Welfare Society, a small-scale nonprofit with an intimate knowledge of the local people. Its all-encompassing, pragmatic, inclusive approach focuses on their fundamental needs: home, work, nutrition, education, community.
The organization has 3 parts:
I – Premalaya Handicrafts
Premalaya Handicrafts provides training and Fair Trade work in traditional handicrafts to 105 women.
Manoharan: “We go to the villages and take surveys of widowed women who are destitute or working in brutal conditions. We offer them the option of being re-trained in traditional handwork skills at Premalaya Handicrafts. We are a Fair Trade business and offer regular working hours, fair wages, medical care, and a friendly, supportive environment.”
II – Crisis Intervention
“We raise funds for specific projects that we feel will have life changing impacts. These include: rebuilding homes that have burned down or are uninhabitable, donating cows and goats, and helping with transportation vehicles so people can get to work.”
Mr. Manoharan meets with a woman to discuss rebuilding her shack and creating a safe, clean home. Mangalam Welfare has rebuilt 13 homes over the past few years.
This widow, her mother and two daughters live in a small stone building with a roof of tar paper. The rain pours in during the rainy season and both daughers suffer from bronchial infections as a result of the damp. The Mangalam Society has raised funds to put on a new tiled roof.
Goats and cows donated to the widows provide a way for them to earn an income. Goats are bred and sold for meat. Cows are bred and their milk is sold. Their dung is used for fuel and compost.
“I go investigate if I am told an elderly woman has been abandoned on the street, if a house has burned down, or if a family is homeless.”
III – Om Shanthi Home
The Om Shanthi Home is a retirement and hospice community of 26 women. The Home will see a woman through her retirement years all the way to her passing.
Mr. Manorharan visits the Home every day to make sure that the staff are kind and helpful and that there is a harmonious atmosphere where conflicts are addressed right away. He told us that it is of utmost importance that the place is clean, so everyone stays healthy in this tropical climate. Three women work full time, in day and night shifts, caring for the residents, cooking and cleaning. He reminds the caregivers to ask each woman, every morning, how she is and whether there are any issues or anything she needs.
Manoharan responds to all emergency calls, day or night, arranging for doctor visits and midnight hospital runs. He also serves in the role of the elder son, so important in the Indian culture. With sensitivity, deep caring, and respect, Manoharan takes charge at the time of the passing of “his mother”, performing all of the funeral rites and offering the puja at the funeral pyre.
The focus is on interaction with the widows and fostering their participation in the community, repairing the damage of years of being shunned and abused.
As they near the end, the women often ask Manoharan to come because they want to tell him that this has been the happiest time of their lives. “When a woman passes here, we all sit with her. It is very serene and peaceful. No one dies alone and unloved.” – Mr. Manoharan
Manoharan reverently performs all of the funeral rites and offers the puja at the burial or funeral pyre.
The women have a busy schedule. School children come in groups to visit. Every afternoon at 3 pm, the women walk 1-2 km; they do yoga several times a week. Their busy schedule is healing. By participating in community activities, the women discover a sense of belonging that helps repair the trauma they have suffered.
The Om Shanthi Home houses up to 30 residents, and runs on an annual budget of $50,000 per year which pays for wages, food, medical costs, septic, electric – everything.
When Anna Etter, the founder of The Om Shanthi Home, asked Shanthimalai Trust for a house for the widows to begin this project, Dr. Werner told her he would give her all the support she needed and his best man, Mr. Manoharan. “Mr. Manorhan has my full confidence, he keeps his eye on everything! Without him this place would not work.”
Your gifts transform the lives of widows and women in great need.
Your gifts help provide training and jobs for young widows and safe, loving refuge for elderly widows and other destitute women.
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