The specially designed candles being made by rehabilitated lepers of St. Joseph’s Leprosy Home at Arockiyapuram near here are selling like hotcakes during this Christmas season for its innovative design, colour and enticing price.
After being ostracised even by their families, St. Joseph’s Leprosy Home, which was founded by the Roman Catholic nuns in 1949 for providing quality medical care and rehabilitating the lepers, embraced them. Besides giving them medical assistance, cured lepers, who are still neglected by the society, were trained in carpentry, dairy farming, candle making, gardening, weaving, poultry etc. While most of them left the Home after getting cured, those who had lost their faith in the society continued their life in the Home itself by choosing any one of these trades as their livelihood. Since they could do their work in the Home in a highly dedicated fashion, all their basic requirements including food and shelter are fulfilled.
“Candle making, one of the trades in which we are trained, has brought new hope and light to our lives. We are making the small ordinary candles to 5.50 feet-tall candles, which are mostly offered by the Christians during important occasions like Christmas or Easter or the annual festivals of churches. We, five rehabilitated persons, are now making candles here,” said Daniel Raj.
On getting cured completely thanks to the quality treatment given in St. Joseph’s Leprosy Home, Mr. Daniel married a girl and is living near the Home now.
Apart from the regular candles, the colourful wax sticks being made in the shape of Santa Claus, candles with Holy Mother Mary’s figure, conch, rabbit, dog etc. attract the buyers a lot. Hence, the buyers come to the Home, known for its quality candles being sold at low cost.
“While the ordinary candle is being sold for ₹3 a piece, the 5.50-feet-tall candle costs ₹500. The ‘Christmas or New Year Special’ candles are priced between just ₹20 and ₹80. The sale during Christmas and Easter will touch up to ₹1.50 lakh,” says Mr. Daniel.
Though demand for these ‘special occasion candles’ would increase manifold every year, demand for ordinary candles to be sent for cyclone-hit areas forced the workers to make more ordinary candles which naturally has impacted the production of special candles this year.
