It made a humble beginning, The Diocese of Ujjain, a Catholic Minority Society (Registration number and date: 3483 dated 14/11/1973), is the Managing Society of Nirmala College, Ujjain, with school education as its mission to offer quality education and establish the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of love and harmony. The erstwhile Bishop, Dr. John Perumattam, visualized the masses benefitting from quality school level education in the four districts of Ujjain, Agar, Shajapur, and Rajgarh. The genesis was transformation of the society through on-going formation of the future citizens of the country. The stress was on providing relevant quality education to the marginalized and under privileged children. Today, the Diocesan schools are known for their quality far and wide and are the first choice of parents for education up to secondary level.

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Decades later, The Diocese felt the need of taking a step forward into Higher Education, empowering students to transform into good human beings and economically productive citizens. The purpose was to build up upon the strong foundations created at school level and provide ‘state of the art’ higher education institutes and colleges in Ujjain. Three different sectors are being catered to, in the Higher Education domain. The Manovikas College of Special Education is fulfilling the need of Special Educators for Special Children who are mentally handicapped. The Nirmala College of Education is serving society by training students to become worthy teachers, the ‘generation makers’, through its courses of B.Sc.B.Ed., B.Ed. and D.El.Ed.  The Nirmala College is catering to the masses through its conventional and professional degree programmes under the faculties of Arts, Commerce, Management and Science at both UG, as well as, PG levels. The college implemented the National Education Policy 2020 in letter and spirit from the session 2020-21 onwards.

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The Dioceses of Ujjain strived into diverse service areas, each one noble in its own context.  The selfless service in health care began with the establishment of dispensaries in almost all stations, especially the interior areas where doctors, nurses and hospitals were virtually unheard of about four decades ago. Accordingly, conscious efforts are being made to enhance the skill quotient for different vocations through the vocational courses of each academic programme.  The Pushpa Mission Hospital and Maternity home was established primarily to serve as the maternity hospital to people of Ujjain and rural areas far and wide. Soon it became the first choice of the masses due to its selfless qualitative medical service at very low cost. It has now evolved into one of the busiest hospitals providing relief to thousands of ailing people in various areas of health care.

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Love for God’s special children made the Diocesan setup the apostolate for mentally challenged children in 1997. The Manovikas School caters to hundreds of children struggling through life with hurdles, not only of intellectual disability, at times clubbed with physical deformity or shortcoming but also the embarrassment of the immediate family members, society and relatives. Manovikas is working under the Madhya Pradesh Viklang Sahayata Samiti. Strictly a non-profit organization. It envisages an inclusive society where these special children enjoy equal rights, opportunities and their rightful share of mainstream economic and social life. The hostel and care homes run by MPVSS provide “a home away from home” to people with special needs. The MPVSS Special School and Centres provide special education to children with autism, cerebral palsy, and many other development disabilities.

 

Economic independence is facilitated by the income generating vocational training programmes, psychological development and counselling, awareness programs on disability, community-based rehabilitation programmes, University affiliated degree/diploma programmes exclusively of special education and rehabilitation and continuing rehabilitation programmes for special educators and professionals, which are just a few of the Herculean tasks taken up by MPVSS.

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Children are the most vulnerable segment of the society. More so, when it comes to one of the deadliest diseases contemporary societies is battling against in vain. ‘Sarthi’, an organization run by The Diocese of Ujjain takes care of HIV positive children in holistic terms including their education, food, clothing and medication which impacts their lifeline. Sarthi is actually the only home majority of these children have since their own families and relatives abandoned them as soon as they came to know the child was infected by AIDS.

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 ‘Basera’ provided shelter to abandoned children and those children who had got actively involved in juvenile crime, were desolate, discarded and starving. Children were picked up from the roads and the streets, railway stations, bus stops, etc. and taken to Basera and were washed, clothed, medicated and fed. The Priests tried to heal their emotional blisters just as much as their physical ones, with close coordination with the civil authority and Police Lost children were sent to their homes, while many others rehabilitated.

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The Kripa Social Service Society has been serving the community through various areas like health, good governance, non formal education, natural resource management and women empowerment. The women self-help groups formed by Kripa have given a platform to hundreds of women to earn their livelihood with dignity. Economic productivity of rural folk is being promoted through flagship programmes vis-à-vis, ‘on-farm’ for farmers actively engaged in agricultural, and, ‘off-farm’ for rural folk engaged in indigenous and cottage trade like grocery shops etc.

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The cultural rights and child protection are a priority area, worked upon through ‘Child Line’. Virtually sailing against the wind to prevent child labor, child begging and child marriages. Their service is also extended to inmates of Juvenile District Homes.

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The Arpan Press serves as a significant medium of proclaiming the word of God through print media, and ‘Ishvani’ through electronic media. The T.V. Channel ‘Ishvani’, run by the Diocese, works 24×7 to ensure the spiritual connect with masses not only in India but also abroad too through its channel partners.

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SANJOS Institute of Counseling and Career Guidance was initiated on 8th Oct 2010, giving importance to school counseling in the entire Diocese of Ujjain in cooperation with all the missionary personnel and other collaborators in the Diocese. The focus areas included promoting the mental health of the school going children in the Diocese, providing mental health services in schools through school counseling, providing career counseling services in schools, enhancing mental health awareness through training programmes for parents and teachers and promoting research and training in order to provide effective expertise in the field of mental health.