Our Lady’s Hospice gets new solar geysers for the wards

Our Lady’s Hospice was founded in 2001 in Kalingalinga, a neighborhood of Lusaka, Zambia, when caregivers were first trained for a Home-Based Care program for people suffering from HIV/ AIDS.

Kalingalinga is one of the poorest areas of Lusaka and has a population of around 200,000 – 250,000 people.  The public hospitals are overflowing with terminally ill patients, and there is a need to house and care for these patients.

The Zambia Delegation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate was one of the four religious congregations involved in building the Hospice that helps providing palliative end-of-life care for patients with HIV/AIDS.

The first inpatients were admitted in 2003.  Free Anti-Retroviral drugs came in 2004 and revolutionized the care that the Hospice offers to HIV+ clients.

Today, the hospice runs an Outpatient Clinic, a Children’s Clinic, and offers inpatient services through 30 beds spread across wards – St Joseph (male ward), St Anne (female ward), St Clare (income generating high cost ward), St Jude (semi private), and Maluba House (Children’s ward).

St. Joseph Ward’s new geyser

St Joseph and St Anne are the general wards, and patients admitted to these wards are provided with clinical and nursing care, meals and drugs for a nominal fee that does not cover the cost of care.  Also, a hostel has been built for volunteers to stay in.

The Oblate Partnership also ssisted the Hospice to obtain a grant for $5,000 to purchase and install geysers to provide hot water for showers in the male ward and the hostel, all other wards already had hot water.

The geysers are now installed and working well and the patients are benefiting tremendously from the availability of running hot water.

 

 

 

Professional training for young women in Luanda, Angola

The Oblate Santo André Oblate Parish is situated in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Luanda, the capital of Angola.  Most of the 16,000 parishioners are former refugees of the country’s 27-year civil war.

Angola is now as a post conflict country and has begun its reconstruction.

During the period of civil war, many children and youth could not attend school for reasons, such as being orphans of both parents, poverty, being refugees, or for lack of functioning schools in the areas they lived.  The result is a current high number of illiterate adults that are at disadvantage at finding employment.

Young women training in Angola

Particularly vulnerable among these persons are young women and girls.

Many of them not only did not attend school but got pregnant very early in life either because they had married very young or because they were forced to live with men in order to survive the war.

Rather than completing secondary school, many of these young ladies want to get their lives back and to support their children as single mothers.   Many times, professional formation is the only alternative they have.

The Missionary Oblate Partnership is supporting a project launched in 2011 with the assistance of two private foundations, to train these young women in three areas with good employment opportunities: interior decoration, culinary arts and pastry cooking, and hotel keeping and hospitality

The courses are offered in a center that belongs to the Santo André Oblate Parish and is under the authority of ProMAICa (Promoção da Mulher Angolana na Igreja Catolica.or Promotion of Angolan Women in the Catholic Church), a Catholic women organization. The center has a capacity to train 75 women and girls per year.

Many of the attendees pay full or partial tuition but many others need financial assistance.  The local Oblates address this situation and the sustainability of the program through strategies such as catering for local events, selling what the students have prepared, and providing the students’ services.

 

Angola

The Oblate Mission of Angola was founded in 1997.  At present, there are six Oblates gathered in two communities, Luanda and Namacundé; a third community will start in the near future.   In the Archdiocese of Luanda, the Oblates are in charge of the Santo André Oblate Parish, situated in the Northeastern part of the capital city.  The parish that covers an area of 12 km2 and has an estimate of about 16,000 parishioners, is home to very poor persons, most of them former refugees of the civil war.  Santo André Parish and has three centers that act as three parishes with a total of 37 base-communities.

After a 27-year-long civil war, Angola is now as a post conflict country and has begun reconstruction.

Young women in training

During the war, many young people, mostly in the countryside, could not attend school for varied reasons, such as being orphans of both parents, poverty, being refugees, or lack of functioning schools in the areas they lived.  The result is a current high number of illiterate persons that are now  at disadvantage and find it hard to obtain employment.

Rather than completing secondary school, many prefer to enroll in professional formation programs that will allow them to obtain a job and start earning their lives more quickly.

During the last two years, the Oblate Partnership has been helping the mission in Angola to obtain funds to pursue a project to train young women that have badly suffered during the civil war.  The project aims at providing professional training to become chefs, and in the areas of hospitality and interior decoration.  At present, there is high demand of professionals in these three areas in the country.

Getting ready to learn at the St. Eugene School

Additionally, and to meet the need for elementary education in 2008  the Oblates launched the Colégio Santo Eugénio de Mazenod, a primary school that offers all elementary grades.  At that time, they built five classrooms and begun teaching three classes.

Today, they offer seven classes but have the same number of classrooms.  As the number of children continues to increase, the school needs to build more rooms up to a total of  14 in order to provide appropriate physical conditions and a study-inviting environment.  The Partnership is assisting the mission to obtain funds for this project.

Cameroon

In Cameroon, the “Maison Yves Plumey” is an International Scholasticate that serves the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate of the Africa-Madagascar Region. It trains young adults from 10 countries, most of them Africans, for religious and missionary life. This initiative, called “Consolidated House of Formation,” was adopted by the General Administration of the Oblates to help future oblate missionaries to acquire the experience of internationality and facilitate their integration into other cultures in future.

At present, the Seminary is in need of 18 new computers to serve the 53 students of the house at a ratio of about 3 students per computer.  Three seminarians have already been trained and are now in charge of effective management and maintenance of the computers.  The Partnership is assisting the Maison Yves Plumey with this quest.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Youth in training

The Oblates are one of the largest missionary congregations in Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they have been present since 1931.

Today, there are over 180 priests and brothers in the region.

In 2009, the Partnership provided advice to submit a grant proposal for a project to fight AIDS and to educate the youth on the topic and on responsible behavior, in the areas of Mapangu, Mwembe, and Yamba Yamba. They obtained the funds and developed the project.

Bembele is a grouping of five villages located in the valley of Musanga River with a population of 12,000 inhabitants. It is an agricultural and farming area without basic infrastructures or road network.  There are no employment opportunities for the youth and no training institutions.  The situation is particularly difficult for young women, many of whom never completed primary education because of early pregnancies and becoming single mothers very early in life.  For their survival, many of these young women engage themselves in gardening; others walk about 20 km to the city of Idiofa to sale fruits, caterpillars and mushrooms, corns, groundnuts. But, for all of their efforts, they can only raise a little money for toiletries. These young women remain very vulnerable.

Student mother with her baby

In response to this situation, the Oblates have launched the Center for Adult Literacy for Single-mothers of the Bembele Village, where they intend to offer adult literacy and teach tailoring and design techniques.  With the support of the Partnership, the Mission has obtained a grant to start this project that will empower the single mothers of the Parish of Saint Lwanga.

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