In the year 1989, Fr Valmiki Dias found a child on the streets who had not been going to school. When he asked the child, why the child was not in school, the child replied saying that no school would take him. An incident like this 26 years ago, inspired Fr Valmiki to set up Daddy’s Home, a school for children with special needs at Gogol-Margao, thus creating a space for autistic, dyslexic children and children with learning disabilities. Over the years the school has its own boarding facility and children of Daddy’s Home through their vocational training, now professionally run a self-sustainable baking and confectionary unit churning out yummy brownies, cakes, marzipan sweets and much more.
“Employment for these children turning to adults with special needs is very difficult to obtain. While our boys and girls continue to be here and work here, I had to think of an option to keep them busy and also of a space for them to live as many of them are now adults and aging. That’s when I came up with this concept of a luxury home for the aged which will be fully run and maintained by our alumni from Daddy’s Home and that’s how Daddy’s Home of Joy conceptualized,” he said.
Fr Valmiki started his ambitious project in the year 2013 when he picked up an 11,000 sq mts of land in Guirdolim and put together plans of constructing a 3,000 sq mts four sided building of ground plus two storeys as a state of the art home for the aged costing Rs 7 crore.
“Till date, I have depended on the Lord Almighty to provide and through people’s donation and help, I’ve managed to complete the entire structure of the building and placed the slabs and ceilings. Now the building is structurally complete with almost 65 percent of the project ready, the biggest challenge is now to complete the interiors, do the plumbing, lay the tiles and furnish the rooms and dormitory,” explains Fr Valmiki, whose work is on full swing as he keeps his fingers crossed to get funding to complete his project in the stipulated time and throw the home open around mid-2018.
Fr Valmiki has travelled to Australia, negotiating with vendors in China, been on the lookout for articles in Bangkok and also in touch with benefactors who want to donate furniture and furnishings in Goa.
“The home for the aged will have dormitories, rooms and suites. I already have couples, who want to move in here as they age and spend their days together while we care for them but I am not yet committing to anyone,” asserted Fr Valmiki.
He explains how he wants the rooms to have internet, Wi-Fi, CCTV surveillance, intercom service, plug points close to the bed, wired music in all the rooms, independent air-conditioned and non-ac rooms, walking tracks, prayer room and chapel with an upstairs space for wheelchairs, ramps, lifts, library, open air courtyard, infirmary, medical room, massage room and kitchens with steam cooking for healthy and diet food.
Fr Valmiki reminds us of the scene of young Jesus with the elders at the temple and tells us how that is his focus and that will be the theme of his lobby space at the Daddy’s Home of Joy.
“My adults with special needs who continue to grow with me at Daddy’s Home School will live downstairs and use their skills of housekeeping, baking, gardening, managing laundry and I want my students of Daddy’s Home to even run an on call shop to deliver stuff from a general stores for those who opt to live at Daddy’s Home of Joy,” he says. Fr Valmiki currently dedicates his time to Daddy’s Home School at Gogol, his service as a priest and overlooking the construction at Guirdolim is excited as he explains to us his plans to create a sit out on the other side of the fields at the Guirdolim property and make a grotto for locals to come and pray and also create an atmosphere for the aged to interact with the young.
“People have been donating to my cause of a home for the aged, as I want to create a space for people as they grow frail and out of their hale and hearty days. But more importantly, I want to create a home where they never feel the lack of anything. I am also working on a visiting team of doctors who’ll come and interact with the aged on a daily basis,” explains Fr Valmiki, as he has to explain to the builder the need to ensure his plan of having potted plants and garden on each corridor and each floor at the old age home is maintained.
Fr Valmiki shows us his plans of the dining area where he wants only tables for four and not one large dining space where the aged people are far and can’t have a healthy conversation. He is busy checking suppliers for CCTV, Wi-Fi routers, telephone systems, furniture, toilet accessories, air conditioners, laundry equipment, gardening and landscaping options, LCD screens, dining tables and chairs, internal and external warm lighting, beds, medical beds, mattresses, linen, kitchen equipment, recreational equipment, gym equipment, wheel chairs, walkers, hoists and chapel benches.
An upbeat Fr Valmiki is confident that how he managed to start Daddy’s Home School for kids with special needs from being a nomad gypsy school in many rental premises to having a full-fledged residential school today for over 26-years, he’s confident that Daddy’s Home of Joy will be completed before the stipulated time.
“People get tax exemptions when they donate to our trust and also we’re open to families and individuals sponsoring an entire room and its facilities, against which we will insert a plaque with names in the donated room and I am confident, people guided by God will fulfill our dream of providing better care to the aged, who have nobody to care for with many Goan families moving abroad while their parents remain
in Goa.
