Home of Hope (Ashabari)

Joseph Dass loves being with and tending to abandoned and vagrant mentally-ill people, who he sees as children of God and to whom he is living God. Starting his life with Mother Teresa’s leprosy mission, Joseph found his calling and set-up his Home of Hope in 1999, with just 2 inmates. Today, about a 100 men and women live with Joseph and form his big happy family.

Joseph patrols the city in his ambulance and picks up mentally-ill vagrants from bus-shelters, railway stations and even garbage vats. He brings them back home, treats their festering wounds, cleans them, clothes them, feeds them and talks to them in a language that only Joseph and they understand – the language of love.

Many of Joseph’s family have been living in the Home of Hope for years and this is the only home they know. Though mentally unstable, Joseph’s love and persuasion has succeeded in keeping them engaged, even if that means peeling a few vegetables a day.

Joseph cleans and dresses gangrenous wounds with his own hands, trying to save the rotten limbs. He says. “I can always take them to a hospital, but if I take them there, their affected limbs will be immediately amputated. I don’t want that. I want to try and save their limbs the best way possible so that they can use their limbs for support.”

Every inmate at Joseph’s Home of Hope is his child and lives in the comfort of his unbelievable compassion and love.