by Dionel Rodriguez | Aug 3, 2026
Bolivia’s vast rural geography, spanning highland altiplano, mountain valleys, and remote lowland villages, makes it impossible for priests to be regularly present in every community they serve. In many of these villages, lay catechists carry primary responsibility for sustaining parish life between the priest’s periodic visits, teaching the faith and preparing parishioners for the sacraments largely on their own.
Maryknoll provides structured training and ongoing formation for these lay catechists, equipping them with the theological knowledge, teaching skills, and spiritual grounding necessary to serve as effective evangelizers and local leaders. Through ongoing education and mentorship rather than a single training session, catechists build the confidence and competence to handle the wide range of pastoral situations that arise in daily parish life.
Training lay catechists across Bolivia’s vast rural geography reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Call to Family, Community, and Participation, entrusting ordinary believers with responsibility for sustaining the faith of their own communities. This project also carries forward Maryknoll’s evangelizing charism, recognizing that the Gospel travels farthest when carried by local leaders equipped to teach and witness long after any single missioner has departed.
Gifts to this project support the training and formation of lay catechists across Bolivia’s rural regions, helping ensure the Gospel and the sacraments reach even the most remote communities in the country.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Aug 3, 2026
Migrant workers in Taiwan often arrive with limited formal training beyond the specific labor roles that brought them to the country, leaving them with few options if they wish to change careers, start a business, or return home with marketable skills. Long and demanding work schedules further limit their ability to pursue additional education through conventional means.
Maryknoll provides free vocational and technical training programs specifically designed to accommodate these constraints, offering instruction in areas such as computer technology, hospitality, caregiving, photography, baking, and language development. Classes are scheduled with migrant workers’ demanding jobs in mind, making participation genuinely feasible rather than theoretically available but practically inaccessible.
This program embodies the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Dignity of Work, affirming that migrant workers deserve more than temporary labor arrangements, they deserve the chance to develop skills that open genuine, lasting opportunity. It also carries forward Maryknoll’s founding charism of crossing cultural and linguistic boundaries to serve those far from home, meeting migrant workers with practical support suited to the actual constraints of their daily lives.
Gifts to this project support vocational and technical training that helps migrant workers in Taiwan gain marketable skills, prepare for future careers, and build greater financial independence for themselves and their families.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 4, 2025
The Archdiocese of Mwanza is currently experiencing a remarkable surge in vocations, with more than 130 young men in active formation toward the priesthood. While this growth is a profound sign of hope for the future of the Church in Tanzania, it also brings substantial financial pressure, as the costs of housing, academic education, and spiritual formation rise in step with the growing number of seminarians.
Maryknoll helps ensure that this wave of vocations is matched by adequate resources for formation, supporting the academic and pastoral training these future priests need to serve the Church faithfully once ordained. Without sufficient support, dioceses experiencing rapid vocational growth can struggle to provide the level of formation each seminarian requires.
A surge in vocations reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Call to Family, Community, and Participation, as young men prepare to shepherd the parish communities of Mwanza. Supporting their formation is also a direct expression of Maryknoll’s founding charism as a mission-sending society committed to building up the local Church, ensuring that a wave of vocational growth translates into well-formed priests rather than an opportunity strained past capacity.
Gifts to this project help provide housing, education, and formation for the more than 130 seminarians currently preparing for the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Mwanza, forming compassionate leaders for the Tanzanian Church.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 4, 2025
The death of a parent can derail a young person’s education and future in an instant, particularly in communities where school fees, uniforms, and supplies already represent a significant financial burden for intact families. In Tanzania, many orphaned students possess real academic promise but lack the financial resources to continue their studies beyond a certain point.
Maryknoll supports orphaned students pursuing both vocational training and university education, recognizing that different students are suited to different paths toward a stable career. Scholarships cover tuition, housing, and other essential educational expenses, removing the financial barriers that would otherwise force many capable students to abandon their studies prematurely.
Educating orphaned students reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principles of Rights and Responsibilities, particularly the right to education, and the Option for the Poor and Vulnerable. This project carries forward Maryknoll’s charism of standing in the gap left by tragedy, offering the kind of sustained, practical support that allows a young person’s God-given potential to be realized rather than abandoned.
Gifts to this project provide scholarships covering tuition, housing, and educational expenses for orphaned students in Tanzania, helping ensure that the loss of a parent does not also mean the loss of a future.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 22, 2023
Conflict and violence within Myanmar have forced millions of people from their homes, creating one of the world’s most significant and prolonged humanitarian crises. Many of those displaced have sought refuge near the Thai border, living in precarious conditions with limited access to consistent food, medicine, shelter, or safety.
Maryknoll partners with local organizations to provide emergency food, medicine, shelter, and broader humanitarian assistance to displaced families living in this border region. Because conditions along the border can shift quickly depending on the state of the conflict inside Myanmar, this ministry is structured to respond flexibly to evolving needs rather than following a fixed, predetermined program.
Responding flexibly to a shifting humanitarian crisis reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principle of Solidarity, a readiness to stand with displaced families regardless of how circumstances along the border may change from month to month. This ministry also embodies Maryknoll’s founding charism of presence at the peripheries, remaining engaged in a protracted crisis that has, for many observers, faded from regular public attention.
Gifts to this project support emergency food, medicine, and shelter for families displaced by conflict along the Myanmar-Thailand border, providing comfort and stability amid ongoing crisis and uncertainty, and bearing witness that these families have not been forgotten.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Inspired by Pope Francis’s call in Laudato Si’ to care for our common home, communities throughout Latin America face mounting environmental and social challenges that call for a response rooted in both faith and practical action. From deforestation to climate-related agricultural disruption, environmental degradation increasingly intersects with issues of poverty and social justice across the region.
Maryknoll supports missionary formation, environmental stewardship, and faith-based leadership initiatives designed to help address these interconnected challenges. Through workshops, retreats, and educational programs, participants are encouraged to integrate faith, social justice, and care for creation into their daily lives and ministries, rather than treating environmental concern as separate from spiritual or pastoral work.
Directly named for Pope Francis’s landmark encyclical, this project embodies the Catholic Social Teaching principle of Care for God’s Creation, forming missionaries and lay leaders across Latin America to see environmental protection as inseparable from social justice. It also reflects Maryknoll’s charism of prophetic witness, preparing a new generation to carry Laudato Si’s call for ecological conversion into the concrete life of parishes and communities.
Gifts to this project support missionary formation, reforestation, and leadership development that form disciples across Latin America committed to protecting the environment and building a more just, sustainable future for their communities.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 11, 2020
In Cochabamba, many children struggle academically due to a combination of poverty, family migration, and limited educational support available at home. Parents working long hours to support their families, or navigating the disruptions of relocating for work, often have little time or capacity to help their children with schoolwork, leaving academic gaps to widen over time.
Maryknoll addresses this challenge by providing after-school tutoring, mentoring, and a safe, structured environment where children can focus on learning outside the pressures and distractions they may face at home. The program specifically serves students from low-income families, offering academic support that helps improve performance in core subjects while also fostering personal confidence and social development.
This project embodies the Catholic Social Teaching principles of Rights and Responsibilities, particularly a child’s right to education, and the Option for the Poor and Vulnerable, addressing the academic gaps that poverty and family instability so often create. It also reflects Maryknoll’s charism of practical accompaniment, meeting children exactly where their need is most acute, in the after-school hours when a lack of support can quietly widen into a lasting disadvantage.
Gifts to this project provide after-school tutoring and mentoring that help children in Cochabamba overcome academic challenges linked to poverty and family instability, building the skills and confidence they need to succeed in school.
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
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
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.
