The phenomenon of homelessness is one of the worst forms of urban poverty and social vulnerability. Women & girls constitute one of the groups worst affected by homelessness either due to family discord, crime, violence, mental stress, social ostracism, or being forced into prostitution and poverty. Lack of adequate housing aggravates the situation, making women more vulnerable to various forms of violence. Furthermore, the associated fear of homelessness forces some women to stay in abusive and dangerous situations or return to them if they have attempted to leave. Not just the lack of shelter, the homeless women also have a constant threat because of the lack of access to secure toilets and bathing areas, rendering them vulnerable to all forms of gender-based violence and abuse as well as making them prone to mental & physical illness. This is true not just for women, but children & men also face difficulty when left homeless. The Indian Embassy estimates that, in Delhi alone, at least 100,000 children live on the streets. Given the population increase of 945.6 million to 1.39 billion from 1994 to 2021, one can widely presume that the prevalence of child homelessness in India has also grown substantially.

In 1997, Sister Lucy established Maher as an interfaith & caste-free organization to provide shelter homes to destitute women who were expelled from their houses either alone & many times with a child or two. Primarily founded as a place that offered shelter to destitute & battered women, Maher started giving support & shelter to homeless children as well and more recently to the mentally challenged & destitute men. From just 2 women & 2 children admitted to Maher on day one, it has in its care today over 4,200 children, over 4,600 women & 1,000+ men. In addition, Maher’s workers have mobilized hundreds of marginalized women into more than 700 self-help groups spread across 80+ villages of India. Each group has 20 people who make small donations of money into a community pool. Maher provides rehabilitation through its watchful care centres, and many stay on, fully rehabilitated to work as housemothers or assistants. All inmates receive the highest quality diet, medical attention, and psychiatric counselling available, irrespective of their caste or religion.

While Sister Lucy left home for better education, she faced challenges on the religious front where people suspected that being a Catholic, she had come to convert them. This made them disregard her efforts many times.

An incident- gruesome and disturbing, left her devastated & became a turning point for her. This incident happened to her in 1991 when she was working with the ‘HOPE’ organization. A 7-month pregnant woman approached her for help, asking for shelter from her alcoholic husband whom she thought would beat her. Sister Lucy did not know where to send her since the convent did not take laypeople. She had to send her away but promised to help the following day. That evening, the woman’s husband doused her in alcohol and set her on fire. Both the woman and baby died.

The gut-wrenching incident changed St. Lucy for life. That day and today, no woman, man, child who comes for a shelter is denied and ‘Maher’ That very day she decided to help the women who needed safe shelter who had no place that they could call home and thus, Maher (which means ‘Mother’s home’) was born.

She had studied only till grade seventh and had to single-handedly start Maher as she did not receive backing from anyone. A few months later, she got the initial amount of INR 100,000 (US $1,370) from an Austrian, and with that money, she bought a small piece of land in the remote village of Vadhu Budruk in the Pune district of western Maharashtra state.

Currently, Maher has 65+ stay-homes across 7 Indian states including Jharkhand, Kerala, and Maharashtra. In total, they house 4,200+ children (including 1,000+ street children), over 4,600 women (including 500+ destitute women and 125+ mentally ill women picked from the roadside) & over 1,000 men (including ~100 aged/mentally ill destitute men).

Maher has touched the lives of 85,000+ beneficiaries as of 2017. In February 2017, Sister Lucy Kurien founded the Interfaith Association for Service to Humanity and Nature in Pune, India. As of October 2017, this new community has 220 members from 8 countries.

Maher promotes a culture of ‘All God is One’ and provides a ‘caste-free zone’ where people of the highest and lowest caste sit side by side & eat together. It also provides local communities of Dalits (untouchables) and indigenous ‘tribals’ with water wells and pumps, solar cookers, basic supplies, and daycare centres for their children who otherwise would have no educational opportunities.