About Leah & Usha

Leah Pattison grew up in Weardale, County Durham and after graduating with a Fine Arts degree she undertook some voluntary work in India in 1995. This involved working at a Leprosy colony in Dattapur, Wardha, where her task was to teach English to young girls at the hostel there. This experience totally altered her life plan to become an artist. Leah was so moved by the particular plight of the women and children she encountered suffering from leprosy that she found herself returning to India and to Dattapur to continue working there. In 1997 Leah was to experience first hand the ordeal of her new friends when she herself contracted leprosy. It required a year of treatment before leah was pronounced clear of the disease. At Dattapur she had met and become close friends with a young Indian woman called Usha Patil, who had suffered severely from leprosy from the age of ten and who had undergone none years of treatment and reconstructive surgery before being freed from the disease. Their friendship became a special bond formed through the sharing of adversity. Usha was the first person to notice the symptoms of Leah’s leprosy and so, as Leah had supported Usha through her illness, Usha now sustained Leah through her own crisis. The outcome was that they both decided to devote their future to the care of leprosy sufferes and, towards this end, they both qualified as leprosy paramedical workers at the Gandhi Memorial Leprosy Foundation in Wardha in 1999.