Mother Teresa
Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu commonly called Mother Teresa, and known in the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta (born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, ; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (now the capital of Macedonia), then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. After living in Macedonia for eighteen years she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.
Missionaries of Charity
On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa and the small community formed by her former pupils was labeled as the "Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese", and thus received the permission from the Vatican to exist as a Church subject. Their mission was to care for (in Mother Teresa's words) "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small community with 12 members in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and today it has over 4,500 Sisters running orphanages, home for those dying of AIDS, charity centres worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine in Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, Europe and Australia. They have 19 homes in Kolkata (Calcutta) alone which include homes for women, orphaned children, and homes for the dying, and for those dying of AIDS; a school for street children, and a leper colony.