Anandwan Gallery:
A small group of women chat while picking vegetables.
In the early 1950s, Anandwan started growing not only vegetables, millets,
bajri and jowar (grains). But this produce could not find a market in
Warora. People feared contamination from food grown by 'lepers'. It took a
contingent of fifty young volunteers of the Service Civil International to
solve this problem. These young people, from thirty-six different countries,
spent three months at Anandwan building a clinic and two spacious hospital
wards. Their action broke the barriers with the Warora community. Seeing the
foreigners toiling away among the leprosy patients even local people felt
moved to make some contribution and many provided food for the volunteers.
Once residents of Warora began to come inside Anandwan, and see the
sparklingly clean environs, the fear of contamination also receded. Today,
Anandwan sells its produce to the local community!
Back to Top 
| 
