Rapid Expansion marks the Student Health Program in Ethiopia

Only in its second year, the Community of St. Paul's Student Health Program in Meki (in the Southeast of Ethiopia) has grown to serve 2,640 students. In addition to continuing the program in the Catholic School of Meki, work is now performed in the Kidane Mihret Nursery also in Meki and in St. Gabriel School of the neighboring town of Gabra Fila.

Each school has a nurse who performs medical exams and deals with these children and teenagers of all grades. In addition, for the 4th through 8th grades, 640 students have a class called Health Education, where they learn basic concepts about hygiene and health. The purpose is to teach them that they, themselves, must put into practice healthy habits and thereby exercise greater control over the conditions that threaten their well-being. Each week, these children and youth learn how to care for their health and prevent illnesses.

WE ARE ACTORS

“He who moves his body moves his heart; he who moves his heart, moves his emotions; he who is capable of becoming excited and is capable of exciting has found the key to the mystery-miracle of education,” (Carlos Pons, teacher and actor).

Following these beautiful words of Carlos Pons, the educators at Centro Comunitario de Desarrollo Infantil San José (St. Joseph Community Center for Child Development) in El Ajusco (México), played a dramatic and theatrical game with the children during the first trimester of the year, reenacting situations actually lived by these children. For example, a conflict on the playground or in the classroom would be portrayed by the children themselves.

The goal was to help the children understand their feelings and be able to name them. In this way, little by little, they learn to relate with one another and with the outside world in a more satisfactory and positive way.

To play a role produces changes in attitudes and conduct, promoting better comprehension toward the people who surround them.  In this way, they are being how to overcome obstacles in order to be happier in life.

Some of the students yelled enthusiastically, “We are actors!”

Cultural TRIps of the children from Casa San José

The objective of the children and teenagers living at Casa San José of Cochabamba, Bolivia, is a safe return to their families or boarding schools. To avoid a return to living in the streets, we often organize cultural field trips for them, to promote and encourage their human growth and to captivate their motivation to achieve this goal.

In the first trimester of this year, they visited the Alcide d’Orbigny Natural History Museum in Cochabamba. One of the children said, “This museum is like an encyclopedia of natural sciences”. There they were able to observe, displayed in the rooms, the principal minerals and fossils that form the important biodiversity of Bolivia. Also, they learned that, in 1826, Alcide d’Orbigny, a twenty-four year old French scientist, visited South America. As a result of his trips, he wrote a monumental work on the subject of Natural History. Zoologist, archaeologist, anthropologist and above all, explorer, he left an important and inspiring legacy. With faces full of surprise and admiration, the children of Casa San José greatly enjoyed this field trip.

Great Progress in an Environmental Health Program in the Dominican Republic

For years, the Community of Saint Paul has been carrying forward a program of construction of latrines in the territory of La Sagrada Familia parish in Sabana Yegua.  The Southwest of the Dominican Republic, within which the parish is located, is the less developed region in the country.  In this area there is an urgent sanitary necessity to have decent, hygienic and economical toilets which provide privacy and dignity.  However few families have a bathroom, with a septic tank, within the house because it is very expensive.  Single family latrines (outhouses) are more common. Through the Environmental Health Program of the parish, there are now more and more people who can have one of these outhouse/toilets.\

Most families in the parish cannot afford to pay for the complete cost of a new latrine, which is about $300US. Therefore, the family contributes by digging the dry well and helping provide some of the construction labor. The cost of the construction materials and the experienced construction labor is funded by the parish and generous donors of the Community of St. Paul.

Through this collaboration, more than one thousand outhouses have already been constructed. Yet, there are still three hundred families within the parish without one of these latrines.

Among the reasons for the people who want to have such a toilet are, of course, sanitation, hygiene, and prevention of infections.  Equally important, however, as learned in community meetings prior to initiating the project, are several other motivations, more related to personal issues, such as not having to have to go to the outskirts or the village or countryside to “do one’s necessities” .  Some comments that we usually hear are: “I am old and if I have to go out at night to go to the bathroom, I want a toilet next to my house so that I don’t fall in the dark and break something”; “I don’t want my young girls to be exposed to some thug or unsavory person”.  Another proud woman says, “When visitors come to my house, I want to be able to offer them a decent toilet”.  The Environmental Health Program offers such toilets to families of scant resources. They see an important part of their life improved and, at the same time, the environment that surrounds them is improved.

In 2014, the program was able to build 194 latrines thanks to generosity of several donors and the collaboration of the families and parish leadership. Let’s hope that in 2015 we can build 300 more!

REFLECTION

THE VINE GROWER

José Mario Nieto 

In this fifth Sunday of Easter, Jesus introduces another image for God the Father; He is the vine grower.

Vine growing in the time of Jesus was somehow different from what we experience today. Nowadays there is much machinery, specialists in agriculture, and tools that help the vine growers to plant, prune, fertilize, and harvest the vines in the safest way possible.

Back in Jesus’ time this task was more rudimentary and needed more effort and diligent care to ensure a good crop. Plantations were owned by families and people personally took care of their plantation. Pruning as we understand it today was completely unknown for the people of that time. The vine growers only trimmed right after the flowering, and that was all.  The real work started at the time of vintage. But this was the most fun part for the vine grower.  The weather was fair and warm, people went to the fields, gathered together armed with little hooked knifes. They cut the full bunches with extreme precaution so they did not harm the whole vine, and they sang and laughed as they did so.

This image of our Father as a vine grower in Jesus’ time fills me with much emotion. The image that Jesus describes evokes a caring God, who delights with our growth. And when the harvest time comes, he fills with joy and collects

all the fruits we are capable of producing, thanks to his Son Jesus.

This is just a reminder of how much delight God takes in us, how much love he has for us, and how precious we are in his eyes.

I hope this analogy of the vine grower helps us to understand how much God values us. We must always remember that he is the one who makes us grow so that we can produce fruit.  The fruit that he is always waiting for us to produce is love.  Let us then remain in Jesus, who feeds us with his body, the most powerful sign of love we have received.