Holy Week - opportunity to connect to the South Sudan refugees

By Fr. MC George, SDB

RMG, 17 April 2019 -- A few days ago, Pope Francis met the two South Sudan leaders after their two day retreat in the Vatican and made a strong appeal for peace in their country. There are already more than 400,000 dead, millions of daily suffering people and still more than 4 million South Sudanese refugees living in camps located in other countries, also in Uganda. Palabek is one of them.

Every year as part of the 'Salesian Mission Day' we select a specific project to support. This year we have a BEAUTIFUL proposal – little chapels in the refugee camps we look after, starting first of all with FIVE chapels that we need in Palabek itself, our latest intervention among the refugees in Africa (Uganda). You can read for yourself the Palabek refugee camp story (animation booklet for the Salesian Mission Day 2019).

We call them chapels not because they are small. They need to be big because there are crowds of Christians coming together each Sunday. They are chapels only in as much as they are extremely simple and poor – almost only a roof held up by pillars.

By the way, these chapels are used on weekdays for various meetings, gatherings, classes, cultural programs on weekdays. So they also serve as community centers of culture, education and formation.

They are extremely cheap – only 9,500 euro for the materials needed for a chapel. We do not need much labour either. The refugees themselves will do most of the work. I know that some of you will say, “This is simple. I shall talk to the Provincial or to the Director of the Mission Office or to our province PDO (Planning and Development Office). We shall pay for one chapel.”

Rather than do this, I earnestly urge you to use this project as an animation tool, to strike a spark in the hearts, minds and imagination of the young in our Don Bosco education institutions, in our formation houses or among Catholics of our parishes. Ask an individual to contribute just one symbolic brick, or a family to give ten bricks or a group to build a pillar or buy one sheet of corrugated iron sheet. Start a competition among the youth groups or associations in our schools or among the wards in our parishes to see who contributes more bricks. Let the chapels be mass-funded, not merely the donation of one rich family or institution.

If it will help your animation work, we could send you a high-resolution photo of one of the three chapels that Palabek has, which you can use to print a poster. And why not to start just during this Holy Week?

Video of Palabek Salesian presence among the South Sudan refugees in Uganda

Complete animation materials for the 2019 Salesian Mission Day

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