The Malta Independent on Sunday
Grand Commandery’s funds recipient honoured with MBE
Leah Pattison, the founder of Women in Need (WIN), a UK Charity operating in Nagpur, India, was presented with the MBE by Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace for services to underprivileged women in India.
For the past eight years, WIN has been the recipient of ongoing support from the Grand Commandery of the Castello (VO/1558).
Based at Castello Lanzun, Mensija San Gwann, the Grand Commandery is a jurisdiction of the Military and Hospitaller Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem established in 1073 A.D.
In recent years, a substantial part of the charitable funds raised by the Grand Commandery’s social events have gone towards WIN’s various needs in India especially where lepers are concerned. Donations from Malta included a mobile primary health clinic in Nagpur’s urban slums; a small hospice for elderly leprosy patients at Dattapur; beds and equipment for abandoned women sheltered by WIN; an autorickshaw for the hospice; the creation of a garden for abandoned women and, more recently, an iBreastExam (iBE) device enabling WIN to provide free breast cancer screening in remote villages in order to save lives.
The Grand Commandery congratulated her for this recognition. Ms Pattison said, “We would like to thank the council and members of the Grand Commandery of the Castello for their most recent donation this month of £2,100 (sterling) for the purchase of another 2,000 cartridges for the iBE device. We appeal to the public to support the Grand Commandery of the Castello so that this Charity in Malta can further strengthen its mission to assist those afflicted by disease and and abuse in Malta and to relieve the suffering of those with leprosy in India and Uganda.”