Possession of plot of land from where Mother Teresa started her work given to MoC
Untangling several legal knots, 75 years after Mother Teresa started her work there, possession of the plot housing Motijheel Nirmal Hriday House at Motijheel slum in Kolkata was handed over to the Missionaries of Charity by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
Mother Teresa had been serving the children and others of the surrounding slum from this place since 1948, but legal issues prevented the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) from getting possession of the place. Today, after 75 years, they got legal possession of the 7 cottahs that house the Motijheel Nirmal Hriday House near Motijheel slum in Entally from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
The occasion was celebrated by the children of the slum, whom the MoC sisters teach, with a cultural performance, along with the Superior General of the MoC, Sister Mary Joseph and several other dignitaries, among them Trinamool Congress MP from the Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien who specially helped in facilitating the untangling of the legal knots.
Sister Joseph spoke fondly about the place where she had served from 2016 to 2019 (she was elected Superior General last year). Derek O’Brien said this was an important moment as it was a revisit to the time Mother Teresa started her work among the poor.
A few years after she started serving here, in 1950, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, choosing a white sari with two blue borders as her order’s habit.
