Background
Pierre Ceyrac was born in Meyssac, Corrèze into a middle-class Catholic family.
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Pierre Ceyrac
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The second oldest of six children, he studied at Saint Joseph Boarding School in Sarlat, along with all his brothers, including Francois Ceyrac, who would later go on to be president of the National Council of French Employers from 1972 to 1981.
Career
He was celebrated for his work in both France and India, earning the French Légion d"honneur in 2005. At the age of 23, he earned a degree in Classical Letters and Philology from Sorbonne. In 1937, he sailed from Marseilles for India, where he would spend the rest of his life.
Soon after, he was named as the chaplain to Saint Joseph"s College in Tiruchirappalli.
In 1955, he became chaplain of the All India Catholic University Federation, a post he held until 1967. Inspired by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, he began working towards improving living conditions for the poorest Indians, notably the Untouchables.
His first major project began in 1957, when he and groups of students worked to help the poor in a village near Pondicherry. With the help of donations from abroad as well as European and Indian volunteers, his organization was able to help thousands more across Southern India.
In 1969, he established a cooperative farm in Manamadurai, Tamil Nadu that provided thousands of villagers with food and a place to work, helping over 250,000 people.
Then, in the villages around the farm he started the "Thousand Wells" (Mille puits) campaign that taught the villagers how to farm previously unusable land. He taught at the Khao-I-Dang and Site Two refugee camps, where he learned the Khmer language. He ended his work there in 1992, and returned to India.
After his return to Chennai, he created the Ambukarangal Centres near Tindivanam, Tamil Nadu.
Father Ceyrac continued his work well into his nineties, coming to the aid of fishing villages affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. He spent the last years of his life teaching at Loyola College in Chennai.
Throughout his life, he campaigned for the rights and dignity of the Dalits and was an advocate for human rights. He died 30 May 2012, at the age of 98 in Chennai.
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Born
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Died
March 30, 2012 (aged 98) -
Nationality
France -
Religion
Catholic