RISING STAR OUTREACH INC

Rising Star Outreach empowers individuals and families to rise above the stigma associated with leprosy and to live healthy, productive lives through quality education, medical care, and community development.

The vision of Rising Star Outreach is informed by the belief that: all people deserve dignity and respect, everyone has something of value to offer the world, and that life should be intellectually, socially, emotionally, and spiritually uplifting and edifying.

We envision a world that embraces these values and rejects stigma. We strive to accomplish this vision by lifting the leprosy affected, empowering them as individuals, developing sustainability in their communities, and inspiring others to action.

RSO seeks to defeat leprosy and its associated stigma through our three-pronged approach of medical care, colony development, and education.

Medical care- Through mobile clinics and partnerships with area hospitals, we provide critical medical treatment for patients affected by leprosy. People who have contracted leprosy are often shunned from society and most are considered “untouchable”. Fear and stigma prevent early detection and the necessary steps to be cured and overcome the disease. It can be difficult to find doctors willing to help. Our mobile medical clinics provide medical care, vision care, and an aggressive screening program to detect and treat new cases of leprosy. A simple multi-drug therapy cures leprosy. With early detection, we can stop leprosy before it ravages a body and ruins a family. Our medical program also provides treatment and support for those that are living with the deforming and debilitating effects of this terrible disease.

Colony Development- Rising Star Outreach helps facilitate infrastructure, growth and community development within India’s leprosy colonies. We designed our development programs to increase the dignity and self-reliance of colony members as we help them achieve economic rehabilitation and assist them in infrastructure building projects. Colony leaders receive micro-grants, manage the disbursement, repayment, success, and the growth of the loans. Families become self-sufficient. Parents are productive members of society and are treated with dignity. Their children do not need to focus on financially supporting their families and can focus on an education. We also improve basic needs within the colony for both their health and dignity - such as providing clean water and sanitation needs.

Education- One of the fastest and most effective ways to overcome the fear and stigma associated with leprosy is through education. Education creates opportunities for the children living in leprosy colonies. The Peery Matriculation School for Rising Stars provides an education from kindergarten to 12th grade. Nearly 20% of our student body is comprised of children from surrounding villages. By integrating children from the communities with children from the leprosy colonies, we are seeing how fear and stigma are overcome when they are united in common goals. Quality educators provide our students with a rigorous academic program that includes English, science, math, and computer technology. Our 11th and 12th grade students enjoy specialized tracks at our equivalent of a junior college to prepare them for higher education and a promising career. We are proud to have over 70 students who are either currently enrolled in college or are college bound this year after graduation. We have also recently started work on a school in Bihar, India. The school, Little Flower, has been around for many years, and much of our efforts are targeted at improving the school in Bihar.

While our services originated in Tamil Nadu, our reach now extends into many other states, most prominently Bihar, the Indian state that holds the largest percentage of leprosy affected individuals. There, we have partnered with the Little Flower Welfare Association to support 21 surrounding colonies, primarily through education and colony development initiatives (as they have their own leprosy hospital). Overall, we reach 9 states and provide consistent medical treatments and/or colony development projects in 67 colonies. Our K-12 school currently educates 372 students, we are supporting over 70 students in college, and provide perpetual education grants that enable us to support children in leprosy colonies that are beyond those that we have the capacity to educate at our schools. We are currently supporting over 200 students through this program. We also support a preschool and tutoring program in the state of Maharashtra, servicing another 80 students. We have taken over running the Little Flower School in Bihar, until our second campus is there completed - which will be able to service another 600 students. Our Principal in Tamil Nadu was recently named India's 2019 Principal of the Year, and he is leading our students to excellence. Our extension medical branch in Trichy, Tamil Nadu, allows us to provide consistent medical care to 17 remote colonies in that region. Through area and regional managers, we are currently strengthening relationships and providing initial outreach to an additional 160 colonies in 8 states of India, where we are currently providing Covid-19 emergency relief.

Rising Star Outreach has a National Leadership Team and full board in India, which leadership and board maintain and seek new partnerships across India allowing us to strengthen our work and further our reach.

Medical- In the past 5 years alone, RSO's medical team has provided over 115,000 medical services, including leprosy screenings, wound care, dental procedures, eye care, custom protective mobility devices, and more.

Colony Development- We facilitate infrastructure, growth, and community development. Thus far, we have provided 134 microfinance loans, facilitated 101 micro businesses, and completed 79 colony infrastructure projects - including community centers, clean water and toilets, farming sustainability projects, and a community computer lab.

Education- We have an award winning campus in Tamil Nadu, teaching over 370 students. We have been given the honor of providing 11th & 12th standard classes - equivalent to Jr. College in India - on our campus. Thus far, more than 160 have graduated high school and there have been 771 perpetual education grants awarded. We have opened a preschool in the state of Maharashtra, which also serves as a tutoring center for village and colony students after school, which serves another 80 students. We are preparing to build our second full campus, this one in Bihar, which will service an additional 600 students.