by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 10, 2020
Trauma affects millions of people across Brazil and around the world, leaving emotional and spiritual wounds that often remain invisible to those around them, even as they profoundly shape a person’s daily life, relationships, and sense of safety. Violence, loss, abuse, and broader social hardship can all contribute to trauma that, left unaddressed, tends to compound over time.
Maryknoll supports counseling, workshops, and professional training programs designed to help individuals and communities recover from trauma stemming from these varied causes. Training programs in particular extend the ministry’s reach by equipping local counselors, community leaders, and pastoral workers with skills to recognize and respond to trauma within their own communities, multiplying the impact of the initial training investment.
This ministry reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Life and Dignity of the Human Person, affirming that healing from violence and loss is essential to a life lived in dignity, not a private matter to be endured alone. It also carries forward Maryknoll’s charism of accompaniment through suffering, integrating psychological care with spiritual support so that recovery addresses both the mind and the deeper wounds of the spirit.
Gifts to this project support counseling, workshops, and professional training that help individuals and communities in Brazil recover from trauma and rebuild lives marked by resilience and hope.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 10, 2020
Located in Curicó, Chile, Cristo Resucitado Parish serves a vibrant community facing significant economic hardship, migration-related challenges, and broader social needs. Despite these pressures, the parish remains a vital source of both spiritual life and practical support for thousands of people in the surrounding area.
Working with limited resources, the parish offers faith formation programs, youth activities, educational assistance for families struggling to cover school-related costs, targeted support for immigrants navigating their new life in Chile, and monthly food distributions for families facing food insecurity. This combination of spiritual and material support reflects the parish’s broader role as a comprehensive community resource, not simply a place of worship.
Combining faith formation, food assistance, and support for immigrant families reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Option for the Poor and Vulnerable, meeting the needs of the whole person rather than the spiritual or material alone. This parish also embodies Maryknoll’s charism of integral mission, understanding evangelization, and direct service to the poor as two expressions of a single Gospel commitment.
Gifts to this project support food distributions, educational assistance, and outreach to immigrant families that help Cristo Resucitado Parish serve as both a spiritual home and a source of practical support for the Curicó community.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 10, 2020
For many people living with blindness in Peru, opportunities for both education and stable employment remain severely limited, often due to a combination of social stigma and a lack of accessible training programs suited to their needs. Without targeted vocational options, blind individuals frequently face chronic underemployment despite having significant untapped skill and potential.
Maryknoll supports the House of Bartimaeus in Lima, a distinctive training center that empowers blind and visually impaired individuals through professional education in massage therapy, reflexology, and shiatsu, fields in which heightened tactile sensitivity can become a genuine professional advantage rather than a limitation. Courses are taught by licensed blind instructors, who serve simultaneously as educators and as living examples of what is professionally possible.
This project reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Dignity of Work, affirming that blindness is not an obstacle to meaningful, skilled employment but, in this field, can become a genuine professional strength. It also embodies Maryknoll’s charism of forming people for self-sufficiency rather than dependency, equipping graduates with a marketable trade and the dignity that comes from providing for themselves through their own expertise.
Gifts to this project support professional training in massage therapy, reflexology, and shiatsu for blind and visually impaired individuals in Lima, creating pathways to meaningful employment and genuine independence.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 10, 2020
For many people living with HIV/AIDS in Peru, isolation can be as difficult to bear as the physical illness itself. Family members and friends sometimes distance themselves out of fear or misunderstanding, leaving patients to navigate serious medical, emotional, and practical challenges largely on their own, often at precisely the moment they most need support and companionship.
Maryknoll accompanies individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS through a ministry built on presence, advocacy, and practical support. Volunteers and staff make regular visits to homes, hospitals, and shelters, offering not only logistical help but also a consistent human connection to patients who might otherwise feel abandoned by their circumstances.
This project embodies the Catholic Social Teaching principle of Solidarity, a tangible refusal to let illness become a reason for isolation. This ministry also reflects Maryknoll’s founding charism of accompaniment, choosing sustained presence over distant charity and reminding patients, through consistent human contact, that they remain full members of their community rather than people to be quietly set apart.
Gifts to this project support home and hospital visits, access to medication, and emotional accompaniment that remind individuals facing HIV/AIDS in Peru that they are not alone in their illness.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 10, 2020
University years are often a time of searching, questioning, and personal growth. For more than twenty-five years, Maryknoll has accompanied students through a vibrant campus ministry that offers spiritual formation, counseling, leadership development, and opportunities for service. The campus center provides a welcoming environment where students can deepen their faith, build meaningful relationships, and discover their purpose. Your support helps form future leaders committed to faith, compassion, and service.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 1, 2020
Women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Peru often face a combination of medical, economic, and social challenges that can be overwhelming to navigate alone, particularly when the disease has already claimed a spouse or parent, leaving remaining family members without a primary source of income or stability.
Hogar de Vida offers a comprehensive refuge for women and children in these circumstances, providing temporary shelter, healthcare support, meals, counseling, and occupational therapy, along with assistance navigating Peru’s public health system, a bureaucratic process that can be daunting for families already dealing with the stress of serious illness. The shelter also operates a food pantry and meal program that extends support to vulnerable families throughout the surrounding community, beyond just shelter residents.
Providing comprehensive shelter and care under one roof reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Life and Dignity of the Human Person, treating medical, emotional, and material needs as inseparable dimensions of a single human story. This ministry also embodies Maryknoll’s charism of holistic accompaniment, walking with women and children through crisis rather than addressing only the illness while leaving the rest of their circumstances unattended.
Gifts to this project provide shelter, healthcare support, meals, and counseling for women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Peru, offering stability and compassionate care during a time of significant vulnerability.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 1, 2020
HIV/AIDS has affected Kenyan communities for more than four decades, and while significant progress has been made in treatment and prevention, the disease continues to place a heavy burden on families, particularly in lower-income urban and peri-urban areas. Beyond the medical challenges, individuals living with HIV often face stigma, isolation, and disruptions to their livelihoods that compound the difficulty of managing a chronic illness.
The Eastern Deanery AIDS Relief Program, supported by Maryknoll, has served as a comprehensive resource for individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS in Kenya. The program provides life-saving antiretroviral treatment, HIV testing and counseling, maternal healthcare aimed at preventing mother-to-child transmission, prevention education, and spiritual support for patients and their families.
This ministry has embodied the Catholic Social Teaching principles of the Life and Dignity of the Human Person and the Option for the Poor and Vulnerable, treating each patient as someone made in God’s image regardless of diagnosis or social stigma. It reflects the Maryknoll charism of long-term presence among the suffering, remaining steadfastly alongside communities through decades of an epidemic that many other institutions have long since stopped discussing.
Gifts to this project sustain a program that has provided consistent, compassionate care to some of Kenya’s most vulnerable communities for over thirty years, helping ensure that life-saving treatment and support remain available to those who need it most.
