She turned this into a hospice where the detitute and terminally ill can die with dignity and surrounded by love, and with the rites of their own religion. By the end of 1998, 70,000 people had been admitted there.

In 1955, she founded a house called Shishu Bhavan for abandoned children. It was to be a "Nazareth", where every child who applied would be brought up as an infant Jesus. By 1997, there had been 14,000 children through the Shishu Bhavan in Calcutta, 5000 of whom had been adopted. Mother Theresa has established such houses in 61 cities across the world.

In 1957, she was awarded a 34-acre plot by the Communist chief minister of West Bengal, for a rent of one rupee a year. This became Shanti Nagar (Peace Town), a hospital for leprosy victims where by 1998 10,500 people had undergone successful operations.

In 1960, Mother Theresa was granted papal permission to extend her order beyond Calcutta, and it has spread all over the world.

In 1962, the Prime Minister Pandit Nehru awarded Mother Theresa the Padmashree, one of India's highest civilian honours, the first time it had gone to someone born abroad. In 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize, which she accepted on behalf of the poor of the world.