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Anna Etter, is the founder of the Om Shanthi Old Age Home, and Paulette Elberti is her close friend and collaborator.
What does widowhood mean in India? In our Western culture, widowhood is an immensely traumatising and sad experience. In India, widowhood is even more challenging for our sisters in rural areas where superstition and extreme poverty impact approximately 33 – 40 million widows. In the past, an “ideal Indian wife“ was expected to follow her husband into death by being burned with his corpse on the funeral pyre. This practice has been legally prohibited since 1986.
Widows in India today survive, but they are shunned socially and blamed for their husbands’ deaths.
The belief that their bad karma (destiny) has caused this misery for the whole family means that widows’ participation in religious ceremonies, even in the marriage celebrations of their own children, is not wanted. Remarriage is almost impossible. Because many widows are mistreated in their homes, they often prefer to live on the streets and beg. Most elderly widows cannot read or write. They do not have the means to claim their legal rights, such as applying for small widows’ pensions or remaining in their tiny huts on little pieces of land which might be taken by any male family member. Younger widows are often socially shunned, isolated, and unable to get jobs to support their children.
The Om Shanthi Home became the dream of Anna Etter, when she encountered an exhausted woman, near death, on the street.
The Om Shanthi Home became the dream of Anna Etter, a yoga teacher from Germany, when she encountered an exhausted woman, near death, on the street. This shocking experience made Anna wish to create a safe, clean heaven for homeless old women where they could die peacefully . She met Dr. Werner from Shanthimalai Ashram (founded by Hugo and Anne Maier, “Appa and Amma”) who offered an empty building. Working with Mr. Manoharan Manupillai, her project partner, Anna turned her vision into reality:
Today we are a happy community where living and dying happen naturally in peace.
In our annual calendars you always find stories about how our work has transformed the lives of both old and young widows. The women in our Om Shanthi Home are found mostly on the streets.
A few days before Christmas 2025, we found Rani. She is 72 years old. Her husband died five years ago. Her daughter-in-law beat her and did not give her enough to eat, so Rani left her home three years ago, living on the streets and begging for food. She could not walk any more.
After three weeks of loving care at our Home, with regular meals and extra doses of vitamins, she is now able to walk again.
Rani enthusiatically participates in all our activities like painting mandalas, yoga, singing, and dancing. She is so happy and grateful.
It is not easy to explain the happiness of widows in our Indian Old Age Home in contrast to old age homes in Western countries. Maybe it is due to the profound misery these elderly widows lived in before coming to our Home. Perhaps it is the sense of community that arises when ten women sleep together in one room and share this presence all day?
In the Om Shanthi Project, we provide a safe shelter in a “Forever Home“, where elderly widows who were abandoned by their families can spend the rest of their lives in peace.
Young Indian widows are completely preoccupied with their survival and the survival of their children.
They suffer in the patriarchal society and struggle fiercely to spare their sons and daughters a life of poverty and the stigma of being children of widows.
During the past year we opened a computer classroom, where 127 students have already earned their Computer Diplomas. Other children learn classical Indian dance or self-defense techniques. Learning together and celebrating with our elderly widows is helping young students break the old, superstitious cycle that shunned widows.
Please help keep our work alive with your kind donations.
Lots of love, Anna and Paulette
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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