Born and brought up in Hyderabad, George Rakesh Babu started the nonprofit Good Samaritans India. What first began as a free clinic by the event manager-turned-community paramedic to help dress wounds and treat elderly sick people, today is a full fledged ‘destitute’ home with three branches in Alwal,Warangal and Aler. Registered as a formal trust in March 2011 with his co-founders Sunita George and Yesukala, the Good Samaritans is a very small group of medically trained persons who provide basic care, and run a small free pharmacy.
They have catered to over 300+ abandoned, old, sick or dying unclaimed people left on the roads, without charging them a penny.
While most people who become well are reunited with their families, some stay behind to help run the home. From learning to dress wounds to changing diapers of the bedridden elderly and cooking meals, they do it all.The Turning point in George’s life
What transformed George’s view of the world was the uneventful death of a Tamilian priest he had known for many years, who ran an orphanage. Despite numerous challenges, roadblocks and absolutely no support from family or relatives, this priest strived to give over 60 orphans a quality life.The aged priest was heartbroken when the landlords of the establishment the orphanage was based in walked up to him demanding he pay the rent. He urged them for some more time as the orphanage was facing a financial crisis. The landlords demanded that he either pay the rent immediately or leave the home right away with all the 60 children and fend for themselves.
George was deeply moved when this man, who dedicated his entire life for the cause of orphans, was humiliated. He got together some others and arranged for all the kids to be shifted to other orphan homes in the city and urged the priest to allow him to rent a place opposite his home and be looked after.“In a matter of a few days, I rented a place and the day the home was ready, I called him multiple times to say I would pick him up from the orphanage. But he didn’t answer. When I called the caretaker boy, he informed me, the landlord had asked father to pack and leave in the morning. And the aged priest sat outside the orphanage on a chair with his luggage waiting for me to take him home. But his health had started deteriorating. So, the boy decided to keep him at his relatives’ home, till I arrived. He was laying on the cot there, when he had a cardiac arrest and died,” recalls George
When George, along with a few of his friends, began hunting for a place to lay the old man’s body to rest, not one crematorium agreed to offer place for burial.“People call Hyderabad a metropolitan city. But this very metropolitan city is full of people who only wanted to argue about denominations of caste, creed and colour when it came to burying a man who spent his entire life helping others. He looked after 60 kids, can’t you give him one place to die peacefully?”
Facing numerous rejections, George decided to go to the city suburbs, where a crematorium agreed to allow the burial. Before the body could be lowered down, he saw over 50 children rush to the old man’s body, crying “Daddy don’t go!” These were the same kids who the priest had brought up.“I cannot get that picture out of my head. Their cries still echo in my ears every time I revisit the man’s grave. On that day I decided, I wouldn’t let any person who is alone or has been abandoned die a nameless death. Each one has the right to live life to the fullest in their final days and the right to a dignified death. This was the
When he started his own clinic and home, several people would approach him bringing along elderly people they found abandoned, asking for help. While some were genuine, George remembers how some were children who would bring their own elderly parents and relatives, pretending they didn’t know them too.“Several of these were cancer patients, who their children thought of as a burden because treatment was expensive. Despite not having enough resources to treat them, I would ask a few Unani doctors to administer alternative treatment to help them live a little longer. Once they died, their relatives would take their bodies away.”
An alcoholic father who was made empty promises of a rehabilitation treatment or an old aunt who was promised a comfortable stay in an old age home with all facilities; every abandoned person in the Good Samaritans home has a story of its own........
Source,Credit & full Story at:https://www.thebetterindia.com/119286/hyderabad-good-samaritans-india/