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Our history

Interserves’s work began back in 1852 when a small group of British women felt called to serve the women of India. Indian women were often married at a young age – sometimes only 13 or 14 years old – and, if they were subsequently widowed, were either expected to commit sati by jumping onto their husband’s funeral pyre, or to spend the rest of their lives locked up at home in the zenana, or women’s quarters.

These British women felt called to minister to these women and so they started teaching them to read, caring for their needs and speaking to them about Jesus. As the work grew, more and more women came from England to serve the women of India, despite the hardships – in those days, getting from Britain to India was a serious undertaking, and several workers died from sickness on the voyage or shortly after arriving in India.