In the past three decades, a tiny secular institute of con-secrated laywomen has changed the fate of hundreds of street children in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru. “We are only 12 members in India, and three of us work among street child-ren with the Salesian fathers,” said Silvy Lawrence Pazheri-kal, a member of the Gleaners of the Church. An Italian secu-lar institute with the charism of “reaching out to the peri-phery,” the Gleaners of the Church – like all secular sisters – live like common women in the world (either individually or in groups) and engage in various jobs, unlike religious sisters in this region who are often bound by dress code and live in community. With a pontifical status, members of secular institutes also take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Dressed in the Indian dress of salwar kameez, Silvy heads the BOSCO Yuvakendra (“youth center”), a home for street children, orphans and school dropouts. According to a study by the Bengaluru-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, about 80,000 street children live in the city. Every day about 60 children are found at bus stations alone, most having run away from home; others are with their parents in slums. Through her work directing a rehabili-tation residence for these child-ren, Silvy said she has become “the proud mother for thousands of children.”