HAITI’S TRAGEDY

The General Council is absolutely scared by the tragedy that has hit Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, where as you surely know, we are starting a big project in collaboration with the Vincentian Family. Right now, the General Council is calling for a subscription from all Conferences throughout the world, to raise the necessary financial means to reconstruct buildings and to alleviate the best we can, most of the suffering of people.

Meanwhile we are writing this note that appeals to the mercy and the solidarity of the worldwide Conferences beside the Conferences of Haiti, we have no news about our Brothers in the capital where it seems the earthquake reached the maximum of intensity. Either, we have no news about our International Territorial Vice-President, Eduardo Marques Almeida. We do hope we are capable to inform all the Conferences throughout the world, in the next few hours, about the situation of our Brothers in Port-au-Prince.

Looking forward to getting better news, I ask you to pray for all the victims and their families.

José Ramón Díaz-Torremocha

President General

Last minute:

We have just learnt that our Territorial Vice-president is safe in Haiti and we do hope that the others Brothers and sisters will be safe as well, and will not have been injured.

 

UPDATE ON THE SITUATION IN HAITI

In view of the colossal damages that have occurred the Daughters of Charity (DC) and SSVP(CGI) are jointly collaborating to provide relief assistance to the victims of the disaster. This joint effort will involve the participation of the DC and SSVP and the latter includes the SSVP members in Haiti and Eduardo Almeida, CGI International Territorial Vice President, in the region.

Eduardo, who is based in Haiti, will act as the liaison person between the DC and SSVP.

While some assistance will be provided at this stage but however the main thrust of the assistance will be focussed on the rehabilitation phase in reconstruction and assisting to rebuild the lives of the people. When the major international countries and aid agencies having provided the emergency assistance and leave the country then there is the enormous and challenging tasks ahead in attempting to follow up in helping the victims to re-settle their lives and this is where our main joint efforts of the DC/SSVP begins. The leaders of the Vincentian Family (CM, DC, SSVP, AIC etc.) who met in Paris these few days have endorsed such an approach.

We have been informed by Elismé Lesly, National President of SSVP Haiti that 5 members died in the disaster. Some of the members whose homes have been destroyed are living in tents along with some of the poor families they are assisting.

CGI has sent an initial sum of E 10,000 to the Daughters of Charity in the Dominican Republic(Haiti nearest neighbour) and together with SSVP Dominican Republic they will purchase food, water, medicines, cloths, tents etc. to be sent by truck to the DC in Haiti who will distribute the goods together with the local members of SSVP Haiti.

The Dominican Vincentians have themselves also organised trips by truck to Haiti in distributing medicines, food and other supplies. Two ex-VinPaz members are in Haiti assisting in relief assistance work through another aid agency and will also offer their assistance to our relief work as required.

The DC/SSVP will continue our pursuit in providing assistance and we will be providing news update on our CGI website. We are pleased to advise that in response to our appeal donations continue to be received in CGI, Paris, for the Haiti Disaster Fund. CGI will co-ordinate with the DC and we will render accountability for all funds used in the relief assistance.

Michael Thio

Territorial Technical Commission Chairman

 

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A REPORT ON SCOTLAND NATIONAL COUNCIL MEETING

I had the opportunity to attend the Scotland National Council Meeting, held in Glasgow on 25, 26.10.08. The theme for the meeting was Twinning and Evangelization. My participation at the meeting was to brief the Council on Twinning with India.

 

The newly elected National President of Council of Scotland, Bro.Michael Balfour welcomed all and addressed the members.

 

The Bishop of Paisley, Scotland, Right Reverend Philip Tartaglia spoke on Spirituality in the Society and the Twinning Officer of South Africa Bro. Ted Smith spoke about the twinning activities in South Africa.

 

The following the summary of my presentation at the meeting.

 

Twinnings:

 

To give expression to the precept of the late Pope John XXIII that the laity should help, both spiritually and materially, their brethren in the underprivileged countries. The Twinning Scheme initiated in 1960, was started as an experiment but today it is at a stage where the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is involved throughout the world. The most essentials for a successful Twinning are Prayer, Correspondence and Twinning Grants. The benefits of Twinning are to increase awareness of the universal brotherhood and solidarity of the Society. It is instrumental for the expansion of the Society through formation of new Conferences in the developing countries.

The members were briefed on the assistance received from the National Council of Scotland in terms of grants for projects and education scholarships. I took this opportunity to explain in detail the various Educational Scholarship Schemes implemented in India under the Twinning Programme.

 

The members at the meeting were impressed by the substantial work that is being done in India, especially in the field of education and rehabilitation. Many were happy to learn about the activities of their twinned Indian conferences.

Evangelisation :

Evangelizing is bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to all sections of humanity and helping people encounter the gospel. The good news is Christ's eight beatitude values i.e. Compassion, Forgiveness, Justice, Truth, Service, Sacrifice, Dignity and Faithfulness are also the core values of an SVP member. By virtue of our Baptism, we are called to evangelize and we need to begin with evangelizing ourselves, i.e. to understand the beatitude values and to adopt them. We need to evangelize others by practicing our faith and by constant prayer. This would help SVP members to make a small but definite difference to the world at large and to those around us in particular.

Dominic Pinto

National Twinning Officer