About Us
Enable was set up to support disabled children in South India. Pictured (in January 2006) with Enable’s co-founder Alison Davis are four disabled college students who were previously residents at our centres for several years. These young adults now have the prospect of a bright future.
During a visit to India in 1995 Alison Davis and Colin Harte visited a centre built to care for 35 disabled children in the town of Kanigiri, Andhra Pradesh State, South India, which had just been opened by the Dayananda Nilayam Society for Social Development (DNSSD) whose Director was a priest, Fr Gali Arulraj.
Arulraj expressed his concern that the projects might have to stop soon due to a shortage of funds. Recognizing the children’s needs, Alison Davis and Colin Harte set up a registered charity in the UK, now called Enable (Working in India). Being a wheelchair user herself, Alison Davis—lovingly known as “Mummy Alison” by all the Indian children—was particularly aware of the many improvements that could be brought to the children’s lives.
Between 1995 and 2006, Enable worked in partnership with the DNSSD. Enable not only provided funding for the DNSSD, but took an active role in the planning, developing, and managing of the projects.
With Enable’s support, the Kanigiri centre doubled in size, so that it provided residential facilities for about 80 children. The children received medical and surgical treatment, good care and the chance to go to school.
Enable founded two large centres in Ongole
In January 2001 we opened a new home for disabled girls in the larger town of Ongole, about 50 miles from Kanigiri. This was called the “Alison Davis Home for Disabled Children,” named after Enable’s co-founder. As the plaque unveiled at its opening showed, the centre was an Enable foundation, managed by the DNSSD with Fr Arulraj as the Director.
In January 2006 we opened the “Enable Home for Disabled Children” also in Ongole. Its plaque describes Alison Davis and Colin Harte as its founders.
For further details, see The Centres
We emphasise the origins of the Centres, because Arulraj is now claiming that they belong to his Society (if not to himself!). They were founded by Enable for the benefit of the children, not for Arulraj’s personal benefit. Enable is attempting legitimately to ensure that the properties in Kanigiri and Ongole are returned to our control so that they can be used, with Enable’s ongoing funding and active involvement, for the purpose for which they were built.
The centres enabled us to care for an increasing number of physically disabled children. A project at the centres for blind children—at which they receive residential schooling—was started in 2002. Also in 2002, Enable/DNSSD started an ‘outreach programme’ for hundreds of disabled children in their villages. Enable also provided DNSSD with the funds to provide Scholarships for disabled students at college and university.
Sadly, all of these projects have been put in jeopardy since May 2006, when Gali Arulraj informed Enable that he was closing down the institutions and breaking off his relationship with Enable, rather than accede to our request for an independent audit of the DNSSD’s accounts.
Enable was founded to enable disabled children and young adults to live with respect and dignity. Gali Arulraj and his collaborators in DNSSD have betrayed not only Enable, but more importantly the beneficiaries of our work. We are committed to ensure that justice is achieved for the children and will continue to pursue matters with the Indian authorities until we obtain our objectives.
In order to deflect attention from his own crimes, Arulraj alleged that Enable’s officials had themselves misappropriated funds. His accusation was all the more despicable because he well knows that Enable has always sent all donations in their entirety to India. Administration costs in the UK, as well as visits to India to monitor projects, have always been paid for by Enable’s trustees or (occasionally) from other donations made specifically for these purposes.
Enable has referred its problems with Arulraj and the DNSSD to the UK Charity Commission. The Commission is periodically updated on Enable’s efforts to ensure that the centres in India are restored to our control and has expressed an unqualified satisfaction with the actions of Enable’s trustees.
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| Recovering after surgery | Enjoying the chance to study |
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| Blind children studying |
© Enable (Working In India) 2007