Your support this tax time can help ensure that mission programs around the world –many of which have been forced to reduce their outreach or go into lockdown – will survive the impact of this global pandemic. Priests, sisters and missionaries around the world are doing all that they can during this COVID-19 crisis to ensure that those in need are given the best practical and pastoral support. Your support today means that together, we continue to be there for those who need it most.
Sr Louise Horgan, a Good Shepherd Sister in Bangkok, Thailand
Alemnesh at the Kidist Mariam Pastoral Centre in Meki, Ethiopia
Nathaniel at the Eden Gardens Children’s Home in Nagaland, India
In the heart of Bangkok, Sr Louise and the Good Shepherd Sisters run a variety of programs that aim to support women and children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Normally, the Sister’s centre would be busy with people, but with COVID-19, the programs they provide, such as a kindergarten for children living in the nearby slum area, a mother and babies home and the Fatima Training Centre – where women are employed to make handicrafts for sale - simply cannot still run as normal. Sr Louise knows that they must still support their local community in some way, which is why the Sisters are preparing food packs with basics like milk, fish, rice and noodles, as well as face masks for the families in the local area. In addition, the Sisters are planning to support the livelihoods of the women who are usually employed at the Fatima Training Centre.
Your support today can help provide food packs for families in need, and financial assistance to the women who are usually employed at the Fatima Training Centre to help them financially through the lockdown until training and business resume.
With over 450 women enrolled in their professional skills training courses each year, the closure of the Kidist Mariam Pastoral Centre during the lockdown in Ethiopia has impacted hundreds of women coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. 26-year-old Alemnesh has been passionately studying in the food preparation course, hopeful for a career which will provide her gainful employment to help support herself and her family, but now her dreams have been put on hold. Lay missionary Maria Jose Morales Jurado helped establish the Centre in 2015 alongside the local Church and is heartbroken to see women like Alemnesh unable to continue their training. Maria knows that now, more than ever, it is vital to support not only these women, but their families.
Your support today can help provide food packs and financial assistance to the women and families of the Kidist Mariam Pastoral Centre, to help them through these uncertain times, and ensure that when the Centre does reopen, that the women will be able to come back and continue their life-changing studies.
The Eden Gardens Children’s Home, a place where 250 children from remote and disadvantaged backgrounds are given access to education, as well as a safe home that fulfils their physical and spiritual needs, has sent the majority of its residents home due to the government-enforced lockdown. Still, children like Nathaniel have no home to return to, and rely on Eden Gardens for nutritious food, healthcare, education and faith formation.
Your support today can ensure the home survives this crisis and
can provide these essentials for Nathaniel and hundreds of other
vulnerable children, now and into the future.
