Funding News: May 2007
Mission Development
In recent years the Irish Government has been allocating more money to Third World development. Money is distributed in 'government to government' grants to selected countries and as grants to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) such as Trocaire, Concern and Goal.
In recognition of the work being done in the developing world by missionaries, a special allocation was made to the Irish Missionary Union (IMU). A separate company, Irish Missionary Resource Service (IMRS), was set up both as a conduit for these grants and to provide technical guidance to the missionary congregations.
In response to this new and welcome development, the Oblates set up a Mission Development Office in Dublin, run by Fr Paul Byrne and Ms Barbara McCauley. Now two years old, the office has succeeded in obtaining significant funding, the details of which you can read at the end of this introduction.
The office has also been informing missionaries throughout the Oblate world of the existence of this Irish Government funding and the criteria on which grants are made.
The Oblate missionary world extends to almost 70 countries across all continents. There are 601 Oblates in Africa, 504 in Asia/Australia and 362 in Latin America. Most are working with the poorest of the poor and have been doing so for a long time. Oblates have been in Lesotho in southern Africa, for example, since 1873.
Requests for funding come to the Mission Development Office from across the developing world and have to be 'translated' into the format required by IMRS, through a process that one Oblate has described as 'email tennis'.
The current thinking in overseas development aid circles favours a shift away from granting funding to stand-alone projects and towards a more programmatic approach. This would mean recipients would receive funding over a period of years to cover staff and materials costs for a series of projects with a common aim. For example, a concerted fight against HIV/Aids within a region.
The Oblate Mission Development Office has secured funding from IMRS to engage a consultant to help us adapt to meet the new challenges presented by this development.
A sample of the projects for which funding has been obtained through IMRS:
Natal, South Africa, Euro19,403
Durban-based Fr Merlin Ince got this money to
furnish and provide audio-visual equipment for a youth leadership training centre that he is renovating. This development is linked to the 'For Ever Home' project for which we got funding in 2005. Check it out on www.foreverhome.co.za
Opala, D.R. of Congo, Euro26,879
Fr Adrien Gesse got this grant for a Youth Education Programme on prevention of HIV/Aids and STDs in Opala. A further Euro8,000 is needed to make up the total required.
The Mission Development Office is contributing Euro6,000 and is currently seeking the remaining Euro2,000.
Cilicap, Indonesia, Euro54,651
Fr Charlie Burrows OMI obtained a grant of Euro54,651 to set up a motorbike maintenance and repair training school for young men and women whose families cannot afford even the small annual school fee of about Euro45 per pupil. Families live on $2 (US) a day, some on as little as $1.
Some 200 students are registered to take part in the program and many more are interested in doing so as soon as places become available.
In Fr Charlie's words, 'Since 1992 we have offered certified courses for young people who have dropped out of school. We wish to build on the success of these programmes by extending them to motorbike and other mechanical repairs training. Our objectives in setting up this program include:
Raise living standards for young people whose families cannot support them in education
Provide employment opportunities for secondary school graduates and unemployed young men and women
Raise the standard of living at grassroots level
Teach young people values based on hard work, honesty and co-operation with members of other faiths so as to found an inclusive society
Form lasting partnerships with the Department of Labour and local mechanical workshops.
Mongu, Zambia, ?100,000
Fr Pat Cashin who works in this Zambian diocese where American Oblate Paul Duffy is bishop, received ?100,000 to construct and run a pre-school to cater for the most vulnerable children and children from the poorest families.
Mongu, Zambia, ?33,500
Mr Kusiyo Lewanika, director of Diocese of Mongu Development Centre, secured funding for food processing machinery, specifically four hammer mills with spare parts and a rice polishing machine. This equipment will free up women and girls from long hours of cumbersome, old fashioned processing of maize and rice, and give the younger ones time for schooling and leisure.
Funding for Key Personnel 2007
Ceres, Brazil, ?9,000
Oblate missionary Pat McGrath, a native of north County Dublin, received ?9,000 for the second year running, to pay the salary of the hospital administrator in Ceres, Brazil. A further ?3,498 was raised for the hospital through a Christmas appeal in the Parish of Mary Immaculate, Inchicore.
Ceres is a small town in the state of Goias where many people are too poor to afford healthcare. This highly regarded diocesan hospital, run by an exceptionally committed staff, opens its doors to everyone.
Sometimes the government can be 6 months in arrears with grants to cover staff wages.
We asked Pat to let us know what the hospital needed most. The fact that he asked for sheets says it all. The 4 sets of sheets and pillow cases needed for each bed can be bought for as little as ?8.50.
Free State, South Africa, ?18,000
Brother Rex Harrison OMI got this funding to continue paying the salaries of the Oblates who co-ordinate leadership courses for 3rd level students in Bloemfontein, and for a Franciscan sister who co-ordinates the care of HIV/AIDS patients in the diocese.
Clothes for Children in Zimbabwe
?1,320 raised by the parishioners of Mary Immaculate Parish, Inchicore, and a further ?2,500 from Holyhead parish has been sent to Charles Rensburg OMI to buy clothes and footwear for thirty AIDS orphans at Lupane in Zimbabwee, so that they can go to school.
Fr Charles tells us, "In the past months I have watched children being orphaned by the day because of AIDS.?
Appealing for prayer, he wrote of the enormous difficulties facing these children, ?I would be grateful if you could pass on this message to the people to whom the Lenten appeal is being made to encourage them to pray for these orphan kids. There are so many of them that sometimes I don't know even where to begin. But more importantly, these kids have to carry burdens of loneliness and abandonment which only prayer can begin to resolve. Please ask the community to pray for orphaned children?.
He tells the story of Nozwelo - a beautiful young woman with a generous smile who genuinely sought God in the evening of her life - she was dying with AIDS.
Nozwelo had two children (one three, the other five) and lived in a distant outstation. The last time Charles got out there he learned she had died.
As he left her house,he recalls, ?her three year old daughter, stunted in growth from poor nutrition, ran up to the wooden post at the entrance to the yard and stopped there. And then, as if holding herself back as she tugged on the rugged wooden post, she stared into my face with great expectation. Every gesture in her body cried out as she clung to that post and pleaded,
?Father, please don't go.?
In that painful moment I realised in a deep and personal way that these poor children have neither father nor mother, and that such a loss could never be made up for in any material way?.
Also in the case of Zimbabwee, we have received ?1,618 to pay for a project management training course for Fr Charles and Fr Donovan Wheatley.
Irish Missionary Union Parish Appeal
Each year missionary congregations in Ireland, including the Oblates, are allocated the parishes of a diocese or part of a diocese where they can preach mission appeals at the Sunday Masses. The Irish Missionary Union (IMU) manages these allocations.
Donors contributed a very generous total of ?32,780 to Oblate missions through these parish appeals in 2006, for which we are deeply grateful.
Frs Eoghan Haughey, John Poole and Peter Clucas preached the appeals.
Mission Development Awareness Scheme
The purpose of this scheme is to raise public awareness of the work being done by missionaries.
The IMRS recently approved our request for ?7,290 under the scheme.
This means that we will be able to fund a journalist to visit Indonesia and report on the work of Oblate missionary Fr Charlie Burrows, a Dubliner who has been in Indonesia since 1974.
The extent and depth of Charlie's work in the port city of Cilacap and the surrounding region of Java is ledendary.
150th Anniversary Celebrations
Last year, in addition to this work, the Mission Development Office handled much of the planning for events to mark the 150th Anniversary of the first Oblate foundation in Ireland.
Among these events were the Fr Din Bourke Golf Classic at Newlands Golf Course and Railwayman?s Ball at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
While the emphasis was on celebration, ?8,000 from these events was sent to Bishop Tomas Balduino for the Faith & Politics Movement in Brazil - topped up with an additional ?2,000 from this office.
A further sum of ?3,000 was passed on to the Inchicore Festival Committee and ?7,000 to Inchicore Primary School.
The final ?10,000 was given to a very poor part of Haiti where the money will be used by Fr Charles Dieusait OMI to install a computer centre and photocopying facility for students and teachers.
The centre will also be used as an IT training facility for adults to help them become more employable.
Parallel to this development, they want to install a bank of telephones to help the community stay in touch with family members forced to go abroad.