Introduction: –
‘’Need of the time is the will of God’’—Fr. Wilhelm Meyer
As our Founder said need of the time is the will of God, and responding to this need the Provincial Superior Sr. Pauline Augustine along with her team planned to initiate a new mission at Belgaum. Knowing the poor conditions of the girl children who are really need to be taken care. There is a scope to begin this new mission in the existing building in the basement at Anna Nivas, Belgaum. We thank God for inspiring venture into this noble service and work.

Situation in North Karnataka: –
Karnataka State is divided into three regions demarcated broadly according to the levels of development -Bombay Karnataka, Hyderabad Karnataka and Southern Karnataka. Bombay Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka are known as North Karnataka. North Karnataka is a vast area. Bombay Karnataka consists of the seven districts of Belgaum, Bijapur, Bagalkot, Dharwad, Gadag, Uttara Kannada and Haveri. Hyderabad Karnataka consists of six districts, namely Bidar, Gulbarga, Raichur, Yadgiri, Koppal and Bellary.
Belief System: –
Anyone will be prepared to make a certain degree of change in approach within normal structure of activities, but will not be interested or able to change much further. However, most of the rural population does not easily accept the changes that take place. They are still under the umbrella of superstitions. The social evil like Devadasi system may be banned in law books. But it is still practised in Belgaum district and many parts of North Karnataka, though not openly. In North Karnataka, the certain communities have a prejudice that if they do not offer their girls, the goddess will certainly take revenge. Even in this modern area in some of the places of North Karnataka there is no nuclear family system. The good number of children are born in the families. Even the family cannot afford to bring up them but still they believe that goddess is blessing them by having many children.

Gender bias: –

Girls encounter gender bias at almost every stage in their lives such as only boys can be sent for studies and girls given minimum education. Even before 18 years girls are given early marriages as soon as girl reaches to puberty stage. However, the awareness about gender bias has slowly spread over time. But it will take a long time specially in North Karnataka for this awareness to seep into the grassroots and
translate into social change.

Women’s Education: –
Education of women plays a very important role in the overall development. Education is a main determinant of cultural traits. It not only helps in the development of half of the human resources, but also improves the quality of life at home and outside. An educated mother surely will send the children to schools and provide a good education. Even she provides a better guidance to the children. Moreover, educated women can also help in the reduction of infant mortality, and growth of the population. The female literacy rate is North Karnataka is much lower {48.30%} than comparing with the Southern Karnataka. We found a greater number of uneducated parents in our visits to different rural areas. Most of them were so ignorant and their living conditions were very poor.
Agriculture and Economical Sector: –
In most of the rural areas of North Karnataka, people depend on Agriculture. Some of them hold their own lands and most of them depend on cooli works. During our visits we found that their living conditions are very poor too. Mostly all the houses are made of with mud. No propare health and hygienic ways of living. No propare sanitation. People are not able to educate their children in a good school. If at all they just send their children to the government schools. Economic status is very low
in rural areas of North Karnataka. The men work and drink with what they earned.
Prajyothi Children’s Home: –
Prajyothi Children’s Home has started on 5 th June 2024.Since it is an extension of the Prajyothi Welfare Centre at Bangalore, the Provincial Council has made a
decision to keep the name of Prajyothi children’s Home to the new mission at
Belgaum. Sisters working at North Karnataka {Gadag & Belgaum} for few years
came to know and we have come across many children who are really need of our
support. We {Srs.Anupama & Sushila} made a visit to different villages to identify the
children who are really deserving and need to be taken care. We found there were
children who drop out of school for different reasons, some of them are single –
parent children, neglected, dejected. In some of the families there are 3 to 5 girl
children and not able to send them to school and the eldest is dropped to look after
the younger ones. Some of the children lost their one parents and hard life to live
because of poverty. We came across of devadasi’s children too who are in
vulnerable situations and deserve to be taken care of and give them a good life. The
children of the Devadasi’s are not simply sent to us unless they have a trust and

confidence in us and in our mission too. After studying the situations and realities of
the life of poor and deserving children and knowing the backwardness of the North
Karnataka, the Provincial Council felt called to reach out to them by starting a Foster
Home for the poor girl children.
To begin this new venture and a new mission we have {Srs.Anupama and Jyothi}
visited the families at Gadag, Bagalkot, Belgaum and Dharwad districts in the month
of March and April-2024.We have identified 20 poor girl children who are really
deserving our help and support. After our visits we have intimated to CWC and
DCPO with a letter stating the purpose of starting this mission at Ganeshpur,
Belgaum, the departments were extremely happy and gave a permission to go
ahead.
We started this new venture on 5 th June 2024 with few children and later all the
children joined whomever we have visited. At present we have 20 poor and needy
girl children in the centre. We have taken first category between 6 to 12 years
children. All of them are from Kannada medium even that from Government schools.
We joined them in St. Francis De Sales School, which is 4 k.m distance from our
centre. In the beginning, children were looking very shabby and dull and even some
children were so weak. After training and giving good care for about one and half
month all the children are looking very active and better looking. Education plays a
vital role in the life of every child. Along with the education they will be taught good
values, virtues, life scoping skills, and will be given good care, support and help in all
the aspects of their life to grow as good citizens of the Society.
The Most Rev.Derek Fernandas, Bishop of Belgaum had made two visits to our
Prajyothi Children’s Home. He was so extremely happy with our mission and he is
found of poor and needy children. He spoke about our mission even in the Cleary
meeting and appreciating for taking up such noble service in the Diocese of
Belgaum.
Conclusion: –
We thank God for all the wonderful deeds and blessings. We too thank for all the
people who encourages and supports us to take up this mission and work for the
needy and poor children in North Karnataka.