Created in 1985, Ashalayam is an Indian NGO run by the Salesians of
Don Bosco, working with the street children in Calcutta, irrespective of race, religion
or gender. Ashalayam gives them the means to build their
own future, by allowing them the access to education
or to vocational training.
Under the management of Director
Father Mathew George Kariapuram since June 2005, the team
constituted by 4 salesians work in association with 150
persons
of different confessions and horizons, but who
all are devoted to the cause of the upliftment of the lives
of street children.
Father
Mathew George
Fr. Mathew
George Kariapuram SDB hails from Kerala in South India. He
became a Salesian in the province of Calcutta in 1977 and
was ordained a priest in 1986.
He holds an M.Phil. and a
Ph.D. from the University of Madras and taught Contextual
Theology at Sacred Heart College Shillong from 1991 to 2004.
He has authored Tribal
Hermeneuticsfor a Contextual Theology,
Contextual Reflections, and has co-edited Be My
Witnesses, and Breaking New Grounds in Mission. He was the sub-editor
of Mission Today and executive editor of Theology
in the Tribal Context Series.
After years of teaching and writing, he opted to work
among the street children and joined Ashalayam family in 2004.
