Inspiration & Justification

One day when I (Dr. Satram Malleswara Rao, Founder & Convener) was on my way to the college, an old and sick woman was lying beside the road in a pitiable condition with none taking care of her. On my way back from the College, in the evening, she was still lying there in a semi-conscious state. With the help of few friends, we brought her home and provided appropriate care and hospitality. We observed that there are so many other old people belonging to very poor families in the society, who are facing lot of troubles and helplessness at the later stage of their life.

Cause of Concern

After looking into the ordeal of that old destitute woman and with so many similarly placed senior citizens being seen here and there, we established old age home by name "Anadha Vrudha Saranalayam" in Neelakantapuram, Desaipet Village, Vetapalem Mandal, Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh State, India in the year 1995, which has been later renamed as OLD AGE HOME SOCIETY.

With strong hope and belief that we can extend our good services and dedicate our lives whole heartedly to the needy senior citizens, we strongly believe that "Service to Humanity is Service to God."

There are four stages in the life of human beings from "Cradle to Grave." First is the Infancy and the last is Old Age. To put it otherwise, attaining Old Age is natural phenomena, which is a necessary biological change. Old Age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings and it is thus end of the human life cycle. "Jatasya hi Dhruvo Mrutyuhu" - Just as the birth, nurturing, and growing up through various stages of life, old age and inevitable death is part of the cycle of life.

India is a country of villages. Most of the villagers are below poverty line and lead their lives as daily labourers. Thus people do not have an opportunity to plan for the last leg of their lives to have a peaceful and comfortable end. Adults have limited regenerative abilities and capabilities and are more susceptible to diseases, syndromes and sicknesses than youngsters. The factor of poverty is making the lives of these poor people, at the end of their lives, miserable, intolerable and unexplainable. Incentives to senior citizens offered by the Government may be a sign of relief to some extent to these highly deprived people. There is a strong need to educate these people of the existence of these programmes and their benefits.

Our culture, tradition and family system have been recognized and identified by foreign countries as one of the best for ages. But unfortunately, we are in the process of depriving ourselves those values. Joint families are fast disintegrating into nuclear families. While youngsters are flying away for work and pursuing careers, though there are enough resources the necessary ingredients of love and care at the later stage of life are badly missed and these are leading and adding to avoidable sickness in senior citizens as they feel lonely and deprived. This is another phenomenon fast picking up in the rapidly developing India, which has to be attended to without losing much time to avoid future social problems.

Our Society is mainly targetting the poorest of the poor who are more or less destitute while we have no reservations in providing the necessary care and hospitality to similarly deprived others also in their old age.