Pronam event at Little Sisters of the Poor home for the aged

August 23, 2016: Today I attended a Pronam event at the auditorium of The Little Sisters of the Poor St Joseph’s Home for the Aged in Kolkata today. The programme called Dwitiyo Soishab or Second Childhood was for the elderly residents of the home. The Little Sisters of the Poor home for the aged was one of the first such home for the elderly established in the heart of Kolkata around 1882 – some 28 years before Mother Teresa was born – by a group of four sisters of the Order of Jugan founded by Jeanne Jugan, a French woman, who was accorded sainthood through the Roman Catholic process of canonisation. It is interesting to note that once Mother Teresa herself stayed in this home sometime between 1948 to 1949 when she left the Loreto nunnery and had no place to stay.

It was a small function organized by Pronam that was attended by over 100 elderly residents of the home during which Pronam membership cards were given to all of them. The event was attended by Sister Anne, Agnimitra Paul of The Bengal, representatives of the Kolkata Police, Suparna Sengupta, COO, Woodlands Hospital, Rupak Barua, CEO, AMRI, Kaushik Ganguly of Dreamland Nursing Home and others. The brief function was followed by a special show of the film Barfi.

The Pronam project, a joint venture of The Bengal and Kolkata Police, has witnessed stupendous growth and demand over the years and currently has a membership base of 12,000 senior citizens. Efforts are on to expand the project beyond Kolkata’s jurisdiction.

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