Mission Appeal Project

The Catholic Diocese of Parassala is one of the newest dioceses in the Catholic Church. It was established  in August 2017, and it lies towards the southernmost tip of India. The area of the diocese is one of the most backward in the whole of South India – economically, socially and educationally. Most families in the diocese live from unskilled daily labor which is not so easily available. Parassala is a mission diocese in the sense that all the faithful of the diocese came to the Catholic faith in the past couple of decades from the lower classes of the Hindu religion

The socio-economic backwardness of the region can be overcome only by providing the children of this region proper education and life motivation. Consequently, as a new mission diocese, we set education of our youth and children as our first pastoral priority. By the grace of God, in the past seven years, we have been able to create some substantial educational opportunities for our children and youth. But along with providing educational opportunities, it is deemed important to provide our children and youth the proper  motivation in life, especially in terms of their future employment opportunities.  

As a small but pertinent step in this direction, the diocese started a residential, integrated training programme for girls who completed Grade X in the school. We have selected 20 girls from poor families, who are intellectually gifted and have an aptitude to work later in the medical field, especially as nurses. This is because there is a rapidly growing need for medical professionals around the globe. The girls are put up in a hostel like facility near one of our Higher Secondary Schools. The girls spend three years in this facility. The first two years they do primarily their eleventh and twelfth Grade schooling. The final year is an intensive preparatory year in view of their future employment. Basically, the program aims at:

helping the girls for a fruitful completion of their schooling, 

providing them an orientation and training in view of their future possible employment, especially in the medical field and

attending to their integral human formation. 

The academic formation includes, besides the higher secondary schooling, special coaching in languages, especially English and German in order to help the girls qualify themselves for pursing their nursing studies either in India or in any of the English or German speaking countries as per the opportunities available. 

The average monthly expense of a student is around $ 100. Thus, the total expense of a student for three years is $ 3,600. We have in the first batch 20 girls and the total expense would be $ 72,000. The return of the mission appeal is meant to support this project. If some of you can sponsor the whole formation of a single girl by paying $ 3,600, you are welcome to do so. We will be deeply grateful for any support that could be extended to us in this regard. May God bless you all!

+ Thomas Mar Eusebius

Bishop of Parassala