Fr Tony Herbert works with India's poorest of the poor: the Dalits, previously known as the 'Untouchables'. Instead of implementing social development programs, he lives with these people, helping them to figure out effective ways to break free of poverty's grip. Over more than two decades spent living with the Dalits, Fr Tony has succeeded in changing the way these communities see themselves, and giving them the tools to continue making life better long after he's gone.

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Among the excluded

At the beginning of his book, A Cultural Journey: With the Bhuiyas of Central East India, Tony Herbert describes his first meeting with the Bhuiyas in Jharkand state. It was during his first travels in the villages. He saw children playing outside some dilapidated houses. On asking his companion who they were, the reply came, ‘These people? These people are bekar'. The word means useless, not human. Read more...

Real change comes from within

As a missionary in India, Fr Tony Herbert SJ could have followed the path of many organisations before him. Development agencies survey communities, get the support and participation of local people, and then develop and implement programs to bring them out of poverty. Instead, Tony just went and stayed with them. Read more...

Following Christ in poverty

Those people on the edges are like a modern day Anaweem (God's humble and deserving poor) naked, without the artificial masks and pretensions that I put on, without the props that most people need. There is among them an uncomplicated wisdom, clarity, a simple joy that comes from having been stripped. In this way the people themselves give great energy; they are the ones who give hope, and that is why I still need to go back to them, writes Fr Tony Herbert. Read more...