Help the Helpless is dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor children in Southern India. Help the Helpless supports St. Mary's School and Orphanage for handicapped, deaf, orphaned, abandoned and poor children living in severe poverty. Help the Helpless was started in 1969 by Fr. Antony, a Catholic Priest who has devoted his life to serving the poor. Since St. Mary's opened its doors in 1969, they have provided physical, emotional, spiritual, educational and financial help for hundreds of handicapped and poor children, providing these young people with the tools they need to be self-sufficient. St. Mary's School and Orphanage welcomes all visitors and invites you to visit and stay with us in India, free of charge.
Help the Helpless is dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor children in Southern India. Help the Helpless supports St. Mary's School and Orphanage for handicapped, deaf, orphaned, abandoned and poor children living in severe poverty. Help the Helpless was started in 1969 by Fr. Antony, a Catholic Priest who has devoted his life to serving the poor. Since St. Mary's opened its doors in 1969, they have provided physical, emotional, spiritual, educational and financial help for hundreds of handicapped and poor children, providing these young people with the tools they need to be self-sufficient. St. Mary's School and Orphanage welcomes all visitors and invites you to visit and stay with us in India, free of charge.
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Charting Impact
What is your organization aiming to accomplish?
The mission of Help the Helpless is to raise funds and support the works of St. Mary's School and Orphanage for the handicapped, deaf, poor and abandoned children in southern India and for the missionary work of the Home of the Mother Catholic Order in Ecuador. The children and families are provided with clothing, food, education, shelter and the teachings of the Catholic Church. Offering love, motivation and educational opportunities, we seeks to help children thrive and become self-sufficient young adults, and support the elderly with dignity and needed assistance.
What are your strategies for making this happen?
Help the Helpless aims to accomplish its goals through education of the youth, humanitarian aid for the poor and providing assistance to families and elderly. Through education, we believe we can assist those to rise above poverty.
What are your organization's capabilities for doing this?
Help the Helpless funds the Madha Group in India and MGHM in Ecuador. The Madha Group in India has a network of schools and an orphanage in Kumbakonam, India. These schools provide free education and housing for poor and disabled students, through the 12th grade. MGHM is an apostolate started by the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother who have three communities in Ecuador. They serve a great need among the poor and destitute. They operate four soup kitchens, help secure funding to sponsor children's education, provide monthly food baskets for families in need, offer medical care free of charge, fund wells and faciliate clean water options, provide microloans to start family businesses, and more.
How will your organization know if you are making progress?
Help the Helpless relies on a metric system as well as visits to India and Ecuador to ensure that money sent to these countries is being used to aid the poor and disabled. We rely on the generous help of our benefactors, and track yearly donations as one way to ensure that progress is being made. Additionally, we track the number of children and families being assisted, and use those numbers as a way to ensure that our programs continue to grow and flourish in being able to assist more children and families each year.
What have and haven't you accomplished so far?
Help the Helpless has accomplished great things over the years with the help of its generous benefactors. The campus of St. Mary's India began only as one small building in 1998 and has now grown to over 5 schools complete with housing, as well as training, technical and nursing colleges to educate the poor. In 2016, Help the Helpless also began assisting MGHM in Ecuador. Like St. Mary's in India, they began with very little and even less after the devastating earthquake of 2017 which destroyed their home and school. Help the Helpless has since funded the building of a new school, a new home for the sisters, and will begin funding a center that will serve as a soup kitchen, help center and more. Additionally, Help the Helpless benefactors now support over 200 children and families in Ecuador with monthly aid.
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This impact information is current as of March 2020, when it was provided to us by GuideStar.
At this time, Impact information published on this organization's page has no effect on its rating per our methodology.
Program names and associated costs are listed for the top programs as reported on the charity's most recently filed Form 990. The top programs displayed will include the largest three programs, or those programs covering at least 60% of the charity's total expenses, whichever comes first.
Program Name
Amount Spent
% of Program Expenses
Support Missionary Groups
$513,659
57.9%
Support for St. Mary's School in India
$372,892
42.1%
Ratings History Help the Helpless has received 3 consecutive 4-star ratings from Charity Navigator.
Independent - the organization is an independent organization or an independent auxiliary (i.e., not affiliated with a National, Regional, or Geographic grouping of organizations).
