About
Location
The Ashram is situated in a remote place called Gandibagilu in Belthangady Taluk of Dakshina Kannada District in Karnataka State, which is located in the southwest of India. It is around 90 kilometers in the east of Mangalore and about 350 kilometers from Bangalore.
It is reachable from Bangalore with the night bus to Ujire, there you will arrive at around 6am – then you have to wait for a local bus to Gandibagilu. But you do not need to worry – many people in Ujire know about the Ashram and will voluntarily show you where to wait for the right bus. Jeeps are also available.
We kindly invite you to visit and witness how we are serving. If you are interested, please click on your respective link to learn how you could get to Seon Ashram.
We hope to see you soon.
Interested in the experiences and impressions of visitors who have already been in Seon Ashram? Please follow this link to learn more.
Our Motivation
The decisive event for the foundation of Seon Ashram was the scene observed by Sir UC Paulose in 1999 while he was on a travel to Plaghat in Kerala. While he was waiting for a train, he saw to mentally and physically challenged men rushing to the public dustbin picking food waste and eating it. Mr. Paulose was hardly able to consider them as human beings and the scene has instantly awakened his desire to help the ones abandoned by society. When he came home, he started to discuss this matter with his wife who agreed. From this moment on, he dedicated all his efforts to the poor by founding the Seon Ashram Trust in 1999 now serving to 440 inmates affected in different ways.
Among these there are
- 100 mentally ill patients
- 168 both mentally and physically challenged persons
- 87 aged
- 85 destitute children and infants
The main intention of us is to raise the quality of life of the mentally and physically challenged, old aged and depressed people of every caste and religion, creating an environment conducive to their physical, mental and spiritual growth in a holistic manner, to enable them as far as possible to become self reliant and integrated within the existing social structure. Also is to train the people to have good interaction with the family members as well as with the society and help them to learn the basic life skills.
Want to take a look at how we are serving our inmates practically? Please follow this link to “How we ware serving”
Moreover many of the psychological diseases which our patients are affected by are curable. Therefore we have the hope that some of our inmates can – someday and with support of their family members, leave the Ashram and start a normal life again. Since we have started our Ashram, we were able to send 507 of our former inmates home. Each person sent home is a great success and gives us the necessary power to keep going.
Volunteer’s Standpoint
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am Tim Halbmann, a German volunteer helping the Ashram to set up its homepage. I hold the opinion that everyone in our society should at least have a place to live and to retreat to. However, many people do not have such a place – for these the Ashram is a shelter where they are always welcome and will not be rejected due to their disease or tick. Moreover I am convinced that psychiatric treatment should be available for those in need. For these reasons I am happy to serve as a long-term volunteer in Seon Ashram, although it is often very hard.
Warm regards
Tim Halbmann
Interested in getting an impression of the volunteers’ service, please follow this hyperlink.
Our Staff
The Management
The Ashram is run by U.C. Paulose, who is deeply moved with the suffering and inhuman living condition of these unfortunate people. Sowmya is the executive secretary seeing to the proceedings in Seon Ashram, because her father Sri U.C. Paulose is traveling in order to raise the necessary funds.
The Office Staff
We want to be accountable to our donors – our office staff sees to that your donation is used as efficiently as possible! It is them to check the stock and to decide upon the purchase of all kinds of goods in collaboration with the management. They are surely willing to answer any of your questions, just contact us. Moreover they deal with all the formal information coming in from the medical staff such as new diagnosis’s of inmates, development of the medication stock and finally the admission of new inmates and the discharge of inmates if they are able to.
See also “How we are serving” to get an impression of the staff’s service.
The Medical Staff
They mainly see to the health and recovery of our inmates, psychiatric and general visiting doctors come regularly to our Ashram. Furthermore they are responsible for the distribution and the adjustment of the daily medication. Medicine is usually distributed in the morning at 9am, at noon and at night around 7pm. Moreover the medical staff works together with a physiotherapist from Kakkinje to improve the physical health of our handicapped children. Counselors, social workers and field workers are available improve the inmates’ health.
Kitchen Staff
Every human being needs food. In our kitchen two staff are mainly in charge – they assign the work to about 15 members, both male and female. Together, they cook and distribute the daily food.
Wardens and Guardians
Sometimes psychiatric patients may try to escape or become difficult to control. Our wardens are there to prevent and resolve such situations, if necessary in collaboration with the medical staff.
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Find out more about
Beneficiaries
Help us
Sponsorship Program
How we are serving
Little Flower School
Visitors’ testimonials
Location of Seon Ashram
Photos
Starting Stage of Seon
Daily Activities of Inmates
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