The full story of the growth of ISEAF can be read in his wonderful biography which has been written by Mr. Jacob Mathew (Click here to read it). But the main facts about our dear founder are highlighted below.
Rudolf’s early childhood in Germany was during the second world war where he grew up witnessing poverty which was an immediate fallout of the war. The deep compassion which is a big part of his nature, was imbibed by watching his parents and grandparents feed the neighbour’s children and also the poor war widows, though not being wealthy themselves.
Years later, he and his wife Elfie came to Goa for the first time in 1990 and stayed in Baga for more than a month. Though they enjoyed the sun, the sand and the sea they were very disturbed by the sight of poor, underprivileged children who should have been in school, but were not there! The idea of financially helping such children to pursue their studies took birth in their minds, and that is how the seed of ISEAF was planted.
Within a few years of their arrival in Goa, about 150 deserving students every year were being selected from across the length and breadth of Goa by ISEAF, and they were given a scholarship by sponsors from abroad who were arranged by Rudolf. The sponsorship stopped only when the student completed his or her education, whatever it may be. But for this to happen the ISEAF had to become a full-blown organization not only in Goa but also in Germany, where a parallel organization was set up by Rudolf at Oldenburg, Germany. It was named as AusbildungshilfeIndien eV.
Apart from financially helping thousands of students to complete their studies, Rudolf has seen to the welfare of scores of orphans who were suddenly left destitute. He also saw to the medical expenses of many of our scholarship students whenever he came to know that they could not be met by the family. Some accounts of both these types of help by him, can be read in his biography.
Rudolf has also been
instrumental in getting big donations to some charitable organizations such as “Sanjeevan”, a registered Society for the empowerment of women in Bandora, Ponda, as well as to “Valentina’s little Heaven” which is an orphanage in Colva; and to “Atmavishwas” in Tuem, Pernem which is a school for special children.
In 2017, he was felicitated at Keerti Vidyalaya Tech. Institute for having given 25 years of selfless service to the underprivileged students of our country. His good friend and former Chief Minister of Goa Shri PratapsinghRaoji Rane did the honors.
One of the several news articles on Rudolf can be read in the Times of India, dated 26th March 2017 at https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/goas-guardian-angel-from-germany/articleshow/57833032.cms
He was interviewed by Pravin Sabnis on 3rd March 2015, and this has been uploaded on YouTube. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qn30DrblJE
In order to have achieved all this in Goa, Rudolf had to go through an arduous journey as described in his biography, until he got the fulltime support of Stella andJacob Mathew!!
Stella was the Headmistress of the Mount Carmel High School, Arambol; while Jacob was the Headmaster of Bhumika English School in Palye. Both of them resigned from their jobs one by one in order to lend a helping hand to Rudolf to fulfil his dream of setting up something permanent which would be of great help to our youth!!
ISEAF is extremely grateful to both of them for the sincere and dedicated hard work which they both put in to bring up our organization to the high standard which it now has. All the information about what they did can be read in Jacob’s autobiography “Journey of my Life” which can be found on the link: http://bit.ly/3r4b8NZleft
