--> Programs

--> Leadership

--> Life-Giving Water

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Children's Foundation is built upon the inspiration of love, selflessness, determination, and compassion that Blessed Teresa of Calcutta exemplified throughout her life time. As followers of Mother Teresa we pay special tribute to her and to the Missionaries of Charity, with an eternal commitment to follow in their footsteps to care for the suffering and needy children of the world.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 27, 1910. At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen, she left her parental home in Skopje, Albania and joined the Sisters of Loreto, a community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months' training, she was sent to India, where on May 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun.

From 1931 to 1948, Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta.

With no funds of her own, she depended on Divine Providence and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work to even more suffering people.

On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, "The Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. The work of Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity inspired Sister Myrna Velasco of the Missionaries of the Poor, Sisters, and Dr. Sajan George Kavinkalath to start Mother Teresa Children’s Foundation. MTCF carries on their good works entirely through the contributions of compassionate donors and without affiliation to the Missionaries of Charity of Calcutta.

Through the efforts of organizations such as Mother Teresa Children’s Foundation, the Missionaries of Charity, and others who reach out to the suffering, the good works of Mother Teresa will forever be honored.