Chennai

Vellanure Village was developed as a special community for the blind and disabled. Located in the scenic countryside outside the city of Chennai, the village is made up of 60 houses over 1.5 acres of land. The village is self-contained behind a low wall with an arched entrance. The houses are arranged in adjoining cul-de-sacs.

ETW volunteers built houses and communal bathrooms, roads and a community center. Water and electricity connections were brought in from the nearest village.
All of the residents of Vellanure Village are poor or disabled. To help them become self-sufficient, ETW trained them in arts and crafts. Some residents make candles, chairs, bags, and incense sticks. ETW helps coordinate larger orders and supply the materials they need for their crafts.

Hyderabad

In 1999, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh asked Amma if Embracing the World could take over 2 stalled slum renovation projects in Hyderabad.

The largest one was at Guddimalkapur, a sprawling slum colony that sprang up after a fire burnt another nearby slum to the ground. The residents had communal water taps but no electricity. The huts leaked and mosquitoes made life very uncomfortable. Each family had one hut; a simple, bare, clean space about 2.5 square meters made from recycled materials, mostly plastic and cardboard. There were no amenities.

The housing project nearby was no more than a construction site. The superstructure had been built by the government, and then abandoned years before. ETW provided road access, water tanks and electricity, as well as bore wells for water, and then completed the walls, windows, doors and interior finishes.
The homes were built in the fashion of a low-rise housing project, a complex of 18 apartment blocks, three stories high. In all, 900 new homes have been provided in Hyderabad, and two long-standing slum colonies stand empty of their former residents.

Kanyakumari

In the shadow of Mahendragiri Mountain, just north of India's southern cape Kanyakumari, lies a 2.5 acre site developed for housing under ETW's  Project: Homes. The new residents come from villages and towns all over the region, where they had been living in overcrowded conditions or in dilapidated huts, and generally had to pay exorbitant rents.

In beautiful natural surroundings, with direct access to a main road, now lies the small village of Amritapuram, consisting of 60 new houses. The houses are plotted in an orderly way, interconnected by a network of nice walkways and roads. Each house has 2 rooms, some with an additional veranda at the entrance. Electricity, clean drinking water and sewage systems have been provided. Common toilets and showers are housed in separate buildings. A community center provides space for the neighbors to meet. It is also used for the residents' daily worship activities.

Thiruvananthapuram

At first sight, the residential area of Vanchiyoor looks nice and clean with good houses. But walk behind the line of villas and you see the servants of those villas leading a very different sort of life - many families often share a single hut, and there is an average of one water tap per 12 homes.

But it can always be worse: in a single, devastating blow, 36 members of the Vanchiyoor servants' community were rendered homeless by a blaze caused by an electrical short circuit. The small brick house with grass thatched roof that had been divided into seven small units housing just as many families went up in flames, leaving the residents with only the clothes they were wearing. They had lived in this small dwelling for years; the men doing odd jobs in the area, and the women earning a few hundred rupees per month cleaning and housekeeping in this residential area of Thiruvananthapuram.

Grief-stricken, the family traveled to ETW's headquarters in Amritapuri and shared their story directly with Amma. Moved by their plight, Amma direct the head of ETW's Project: Homes to meet with the family. Br. Premamrita drew up a plan to build a large, two-story house on the same land on which their hut had burnt to the ground. The plan was to build essentially seven ETW houses joined as a single complex.

With construction complete, these families are finally able to enjoy the luxury of their own two-story home, fully equipped with spacious rooms, bathrooms, toilets, a prayer room and enclosed garden.