by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 14, 2024
Office for immigrants of the Aone of Curco Diocesis de Talca
The Pastoral of Human Movimiento of the Diocese of Talca has been helping the immigrants in the City of Curico for the last three years. This process has become more complicated in recent years and has been taking up to a year or more to obtain the visa which they need to be able to get decent job. Curico and the area close to Curico has received immigrants from countries such as Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. In Curico, there is a camp where approximately 150 Haitian families have built temporary houses, and the city of Curico has been trying to move them because there is not authorization to build homes. With your gift, Brother Nitsch hopes to help many immigrants in Curico with their local papers and with the process of obtaining their visas and work permits.
“Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.”
– Hebrews 13:2
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 14, 2024
Training Workshop in Massage Therapy for the Women’s Prisoners at the Jail by Blind Professors
Fr. Kyungsu Son and his team plan to teach adult women prisoners at the prison to become therapists who will provide wellness through the techniques of Massotherapy “free of charge” to the population of inmates of the Establishment Penitenciaria. Using relaxing massages to relieve stress, they will help to recover the emotional stability of the people assisted. The prisoners will be trained in Massage Therapy techniques and Reflexology and Shiatsu (Japanese Massage) by the licensed blind professors from La Casa Bartimeo in theoretical and practical concepts of body therapies, anatomical bone structure and muscle, and related techniques. With your gift, the female prisoners are released from prison and return to society, can immediately use the skills they learned in prison to work as professional masseuses.
“and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.”
– James 5:15
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 14, 2024
“Our Home” Shelter (Hogar Albergue Nuestra Casa)
Initiated by a group of laypersons in 2005, “Our Home” Shelter, also known as Hogar Albergue Nuestra Casa, began as a nonprofit social work whose purpose was to offer a safe space and protection to girls and adolescents between the ages of 9 and 18 who have suffered sexual violence within their families. Under the guidance of Brother Ryan Thibert, M.M., the goal of this program is to provide an integral approach that will permit the reestablishment of their personal and family well-being and the restitution of those rights which have been violated. The shelter can house a total capacity of 15 girls and adolescents. The services are also extended to the families of the girls as the family relationship is essential for affective emotion healing and their family re-integration. With your gift, Father Ryan can offer a temporary safe space of protection to girls and adolescents ages 9 through 18 while providing education and services to the families.
“I command you: be strong and steadfast! Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord, your God, is with you wherever you go.”
– Joshua 1:9
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 22, 2023
This project works in collaboration with a congregation of religious sisters, Hermanas Misioneras de Cristo Sediento, to sell alpaca wool and some artisanal alpaca crafts. The Sisters spin alpaca wool into 200 yard skeins for sale. The crafts will be a few hand-made sweaters, scarves, shawls and blankets. The proceeds will support the ministries of the religious Sisters to the local population.
“Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full”
Proverbs 19:17
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Human Rights and Care of Creation
Along with The Office of “Human Rights and Environment” – DHUMA – a non-governmental organization, this project supports members of indigenous communities and grassroots social organizations (OSB) who empower themselves by learning their rights, strengthening their communities and organizations, being proactive in nonviolent actions for the defense of our common home, Mother Earth, and her natural resources, especially water, and continually creating new paths, such as opening Constitutional legal suits (Casos de Amparo) against the State and mining enterprises, to assure that their rights are respected by the State and extractive industries.
With your gift, you will help leaders who are willing to challenge the “extractivist” model of development and any human activity, negligence or policy which generates disastrous impacts on Mother Earth or violates the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples to life, health, water, territory, land, prior consultation and consent, ethnic identity, organizational autonomy, indigenous justice, etc. succeed.
“In safeguarding and helping to renew God’s creation, we cultivate a peace we can not only enjoy today but also that can continue to sustain generations to come.”
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
The project will provide individual and group counseling to local Bolivians. Along with a psychiatrist, Fr. Greg hopes to counsel low-income adults and families who do not have financial access to professional counseling services. The psychologist and Fr. Greg will offer counseling services in individual offices at the Maryknoll Center. They will counsel adults and families on home visits. In order to accommodate the needs of a few clients, they will sometimes meet them at a public location near their place of work.
In collaboration with two other Bolivian professionals, Fr. Greg will offer courses, workshops and seminars. The courses will focus on spirituality for personal transformation. The education and counseling will emphasize the potential healing, purpose and interior peace of a mindful spiritual life.
In Bolivia, there is a genuine need for group and individual counseling to address the psychological, emotional and spiritual needs of struggling families and individuals. Nevertheless, many families are more concerned with immediate material needs than counseling. Fr. Greg would like to take a combined approach to address the counseling needs of poor Bolivian families by creating a small counseling center for single mothers through collaboration with a pre-existing tutoring and daycare center for the children of single mothers and fathers.
“Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.”
1 Thessalonians 5:11
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Servicios Misioneros Proyecto Laudato Si
Fr. Alejandro Marina, M.M.
Missionary Services is the program through which we continue to offer “missionary formation” to the Churches of Latin America and beyond. Led by Fr. Alejandro Marina, M.M., this training is carried out through online workshops, administration of the “Ex-CMMAL” building so that various organizations committed to the mission, have their headquarters to offer their formative proposals which include counseling and spiritual accompaniment, and the Laudato Si Program: Care of creation and formation in an ecological spirituality.
Missionary Services is the program through which we continue to offer “missionary formation” to the Churches of Latin America and beyond.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Aug 10, 2020
Medical and Pastoral Services for Prisoners
Fr. Joe Fedora works to provide medicine to the detained and secretarial services the Chaplain at Peru’s largest prison, San Pedro de Lurigancho, a facility built for 3,300 prisoners that currently holds 10,000, making it the most densely populated prison in the Americas. The aim is to accompany people abandoned by society and, for many, even by family. Established in 1999, the project continues to medical and pastoral care to the forgotten.
Father Joseph Fedora offers counseling, the Sacraments, and medicines to prisoners who are HIV+ and receiving little or no care.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,* and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 11, 2020
In three learning centers, serving 170 children with teachers and volunteers, Fr. Paul Sykora offers tutoring to children in a poor area of Cochabamba, Bolivia where immigration from rural areas is high and families from other cultures must adapt. The children now live in a world that their parents do not understand.
Learning Spanish language skills is the first step in advancing in school and adjusting to their new environment.
Your gift provides an education to the youth in Bolivia.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Jun 10, 2020
Anger, fear, anxiety and depression . . . these are all common symptoms of trauma that Fr. Dennis Moorman helps people to resolve in both individual sessions as well as workshops with groups and official trainings for trauma therapists in Brazil and throughout the world.
Although, Fr. Dennis is stationed in São Paulo, Brazil, his trauma healing ministry has expanded to fifteen countries throughout the world, where he has presented this work in Haiti, South Korea, Japan, USA, Hong Kong, Nepal, China, Tanzania, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, India and Egypt, as well as Brazil. During the pandemic this work has expanded to include working virtually with people in Columbia, Germany, Kenya, Russia, U.K. and Belgium.
Fr. Dennis’ work attends not only to the emotional and physical, but also the spiritual realm of healing, where he witnesses daily the new hope and energy for life that is unleashed when a person is able to overcome being stuck in a traumatic pattern in their life. Those who are healed often learn to help others who are suffering with trauma in order to give back to their communities the gift of healing they have received.
