DE PAUL SSSMILE VILLAGE, established in Vettikkuzhy, (Chaipankkuzhy parish, Irinjalakkuda diocese, Trichur District), is a humble contribution of the Vincentian Congregation in the Catholic Church in India, as a grand Jubilee Memorial of the Holy Year-2000.

The SSSMILE Village, meant for the rehabilitation of people wandering in the streets, is the realisation of a dream to become privileged to serve the poor and the abandoned, wandering in the streets, by our loving, caring and healing touch - to keep them smiling, having given them the experience of God's tremendous love for them.

.......Vettikkuzhy is a small, but beautiful village in the Block Panchayath of Chalakkudy in the district of Trichur, Kerala, South India. Vettikkuzhy is twenty kilometers away from Chalakkudy railway station and forty five kilometers away from Kochi-International airport in Nedumbassery. Vettikkuzhy is a hilly area with beautiful trees and greenery. The creeks and canals that flow inside Vettikkuzhy are beautiful and they are of great advantage for the agriculture. Just twelve kilometers east of Vettikkuzhy is the famous waterfalls of Athirappilly and Vazhachal. Beyond in the same direction is the Sholayar dam.

The De Paul SSSMILE Village has begun functioning in Vettikkuzhy on June 13, 2000 in a temporary shed. June 13th was selected as the day of this informal inauguration since it is the Feast Day of St. Anthony of Padua, who is honored as the special heavenly patron of the SSSMILE Village. The official blessing and inauguration of the first three homes of the SSSMILE Village was done by His Beatitude Mar Varkey Cardinal Vithayathil, CSSR, Major Archbishop of Syro-Malabar Church, on September 27, 2000, on the Feast Day of St. Vincent de Paul, the heavenly patron of the Village.

The Village is designed to have twenty homes for four hundred people who would come from the streets to reside in the Village. There will be twenty people in one house. The people from the streets will be of various categories, such as children, young people, elderly men and women, physically handicapped, mentally retarded, the blind, the lepers, drug addicts, mental patients, wandering families, unwed mothers with their children and such others. They are all welcome to the village to live a life of human dignity and decency. At this initial stage the Village welcomed 10 children and 6 grown-ups.

The Village is in its infant stage and has a long way to go. We need to build more homes for these homeless. We have to create facilities for the living of the people who have volunteered to serve them without any salary or remuneration. Children capable of learning will be sent to School. They will also be given opportunities to learn jobs to help themselves. The daily maintenance of the Village - food, medical care, school expenses for children, stationaries and many other needs of daily life - require a lot of funds.

Volunteers in SSSMILE Village