VOLUME 10, NUMBER 2

        JPIC – SOUTH AFRICA    

                   MARY WARD WOMAN IN THE FIELD

                         ELIZABETH DONNAN IBVM

In every person’s life there is a moment of revelation and something is changed forever.  For Mary Ward that moment of revelation occurred during her ‘Glory Vision’ where she understood that she was not to be a Carmelite nun ‘but the work to be done …was a thing that would please God far more and give him greater glory..’  From that time Mary Ward’s life took a totally different direction from which she never deviated.

For me the five months’ Tertianship experience in Kenya in 1988 was such a moment of truth. The combination of spiritual renewal after eighteen years of teaching in Australian Loreto schools and insertion in a developing country provided the required mix. That same year, 1988 was a significant year in Australia in that it was the bicentenary of European settlement, an event that the Aboriginal population of Australia did not want to celebrate.  The Melbourne based school in which I was involved at that time took a courageous step and rather celebrated aboriginal culture, history and spirituality with a whole school pilgrimage to Central Australia. Loreto Schools in Australia as I knew them then provided for an affluent clientele for the most part and at the same time provided an educational program that raised awareness of and involvement in justice issues. For me personally life style became an issue.  I remember once choosing a panel of past pupils for a meeting on justice for staffs of Australian Loreto schools. It was only when I was challenged about my choices that I realized that one of my criteria was that the past pupils’ choice for justice had affected their lifestyle, usually involving a move to a simpler life style.

in the theatre. With us was an elderly Loreto Sister, a missionary in Kenya for over 50 years, who refused to stand for the National Anthem, which resulted in intervention from the ushers and management.  She articulated to us in the car going home her struggles with living in Kenya since independence. I do not remember her name and it is irrelevant and her attitude was not generalized throughout the Kenyan Loreto province. For me the incident posed the question ‘Can Loreto live appropriately in post colonial Africa?’  As time went on the question became for me ‘Could I live appropriately in Africa?’ My Kenyan experiences brought home to me the reality of inequality and the challenge to foster a more equal, just world. St Paul in his letter to the Galatians (3:28) presents us with the ideal of a just equal world:- ‘There is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women, you are all one in Christ’  This quote encapsulates so much of God’s dream for us but at the same time challenges our prejudices, often unconscious, around race, status and gender. The Kenyans’ gift to me was to slow me down. I also glimpsed some insight into ‘ubuntu’, symbolized for me by the security of the baby carried continuously on the mother’s back until the next baby arrived. At the same time the harsh reality of the struggle for survival was everywhere. 

some insight into our struggle to become a truly multicultural Institute.

After moving to the South African Loreto province I lived in a township outside Witbank in South Africa for eight years. I found it a challenge to teach in a dysfunctional government school and to be surrounded by violence and AIDS but was greatly buoyed by the resilience, friendship and spirit of the people.  Since 2006 I have been in a rural area in the west of Zambia. I have learned to wait to be asked before initiating anything within the local community.  I have tried to link in with existing structures, so that when I move on the enterprises will continue.  Where I have struggled is with acquiring languages, firstly Zulu and now siLozi.  As an ex-pat (muzungu, mlungu, chindele, macua), I am continually challenged as to how to live appropriately in Africa. Furthermore my life style has changed, but all is relative as my living conditions are infinitely better than the vast majority of my neighbours.

The 1609 ‘Glory Vision’ was the inspiration behind Mary Ward’s life work of founding a religious congregation and at the same time gave her the strength to face the challenges posed by papal authorities and the Church.  Four hundred years on the Institute she founded faces different challenges, but real all the same.  For me one such challenge is that we continue to find ways of becoming a truly intercultural, international Institute.

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Jacinta Bannon IBVM (pictured above) had this to say about HEALING OF MEMORIES WORKSHOPS when interviewed by Glenda Wildschut:

Healing of Memories workshops provide an opportunity to lay down barriers. Notice I said “lay them down,” rather than “break through them.” The ground rules of a Healing of Memories workshop embody an approach of gentleness and respect that is contrary to what many of us have experienced elsewhere.  We invite people to lay down the barriers between themselves and other rather than push them into something that would be yet another violation of their humanity.  We invite them to have the confidence to be with people as people, not as the ‘other’ who is strange and different.  That is a huge step towards healing and wholeness of ourselves, those we work with and our families.  It spreads gradually to the nation. 

Life damages us as well as gives us great blessings.  We all have been chipped and some of us have been dented.  In those dents there is agony, but there is also wisdom that can grow out of the experience.  I think in a Healing of Memories workshop we have an opportunity to look at this, not in a judgmental way, but in the sense of, “This is it… this is my story.  It’s not good, bad, or better; it’s my story, just as it is.” Then, in a safe space we can look at that story with respect and decide how to take a step into the future….

In Healing of Memories we are all participants, and no one person has the wisdom; the wisdom is in the group….. 

So far in 2009, Jacinta has been involved in facilitating Healing of Memories workshops in Zimbabwe and Namibia as well as involved in training facilitators in the Healing of Memories process both in Namibia and South Africa.

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Extracts from a talk by Fr. Rob Esdaile to the National Justice and Peace Network of the UK, February 2009.

‘Live Simply’ before the Crash:

The timing of Live Simply was dictated by the 40^th anniversary of Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio (1967).  Back then, living ‘simply, sustainably and in solidarity’ seemed like a modest act of resistance to the ideology of the markets.  It put a small question-mark alongside the overweening self-confidence of our culture, and invited ordinary people to make simple pledges to do something that would both make themselves think and mark them out from the herd caught up in rampant consumerism.

A failure of discernment:

Now we are in recession Live Simply looks rather different.  The old order was not only unjust but unsustainable.

Moving on – simplicity, sustainability and solidarity:

Looking to the future, Live Simply can be part of the solution to our crisis.  Living simply is forced on people by economic circumstance (after years of over-consumption).  We recognize that, as a country, we were living unsustainably, beyond our means. And solidarity is no longer going to be about a token gesture toward distant lands but something experienced much closer to home.  ‘Live Simply’ could become a tool for making sense of what is happening in the current crisis and helping people develop a spirituality to cope with the experience.  Nothing has proved secure because we had created a world of illusion.  The loss of confidence (and its consequences) is breathtaking.  Yet from a theological point-of-view, there is something healthy going on here, amidst the pain.  We are being reminded of the fundamental truth of our humanity – that we are contingent beings, creatures, vulnerable and inter-dependent (Mt 6.17, 31-33)…Believers should know intuitively that possessions are not in themselves the basis for our sense of well-being.  Our value, dignity and giftedness are not diminished by unemployment or financial difficulty and neither need our joy be.

See          www.justice-and-peace.org.uk

                www.livesimply.org.uk

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HIV/

AIDS

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Pat Hanvey IBVM is co-ordinator of the Sancta Maria Health Care Centre in Lukulu

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Millennium Development Goal Six strives towards combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and specifically to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. Significant advances were made in Lukulu in 2004 when the Government, with assistance from the Global fund for HIV/AIDS, introduced free  antiretroviral drug therapy (ART)  for those who tested positive.  Access to ART prior to this was limited as the small fee of K 40 000 (USD 8) per month was prohibitive for the majority living in the impoverished community of Lukulu, and thus the drugs were not accessible to them despite their availability.

With free drugs introduced in 2004, all those eligible living in the township of Lukulu could access them.  Currently, the small District Hospital in Lukulu tests on average around 1300 people per year.   In 2008, 1286 people tested at the hospital and 307 of these were found to be HIV+ (approx. 24%).  Once a person tests positive they are assessed for eligibility to drug therapy (ART). Since 2004 a total of 900 people have been started on antiretroviral drugs at the District Hospital.  This means daily drug taking for the rest of their life, and regular review and supply of the medicines by the hospital. 

This is obviously a huge burden for the small hospital with limited resources.  Ongoing sensitization of the community means more people are presenting for testing, which is a very positive development, but has the negative side of longer queues, waiting times and overburdened staff and facilities.  To help alleviate such problems Sancta Maria Mission, in close proximity to the Hospital has, thanks to generous donors, developed a CTC (Counselling, Testing and Care) Centre, working in close partnership with the Health authorities.  Over the past 14 months, three volunteer trained Counsellors from the local community together with a nurse seconded by the hospital have tested 624 people for HIV/AIDS at Sancta Maria.  Of these 126 (approx 20%) tested positive, a number of whom were found to be eligible and subsequently initiated on ART.  Sancta Maria Mission, has recently installed its own CD4 medical analyzer which will further enhance the speed at which people are assessed for drug therapy.

three years, initiated a mobile testing service, making available a vehicle, driver, fuel and a trained volunteer Counsellor to assist local medical personnel to bring testing and treatment to remote areas. 

Three centres have benefitted from this service, two at approximately 70 kms north and south of Lukulu respectively, and one 40 kms from Lukulu only accessible by a track through deep sand. Such outreaches in their initial phases between Nov 2006 and April 2008 enabled 404 people living in remote villages to be tested.  From January to May 2009 a total of 250 people have tested at these remote centres. All of those testing positive since the initiation of the mobile outreach in Nov 2006 have been assessed for ART and those eligible receive the vital ongoing supply of drugs and regular review by medical personnel. 

With ongoing education and sensitization of the communities about HIV/AIDS by the mobile outreach teams, the numbers testing in these remote areas are set to increase. Possibilities are also being explored to extend the services to other remote communities.  The collaboration between health authorities and Sancta Maria Mission has proved very successful in bringing about greater equity of access to testing and treatment for HIV/AIDS in the remote rural District of Lukulu

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Sister Columbanus Kerrigan died in Ireland on 21^st March 2009.  She worked in Lydenburg and Glen Cowie in South Africa for most of her life. She was a great ‘pray-er’ and we used to give her all the intentions that needed urgent replies! When you would come to tell her that something had happened against all expectations, she would say:  ‘Now you know the power of prayer.’ Colum was a wizard with animals.  She could tame the wildest cat and dogs did the most extraordinary things for her.  As for plants!  She transformed the barren land around the Nurses Home in the Glen into a showpiece of gardening.

What are genetically modified organisms?

GMOs are organisms which have had the essence of their intrinsic nature changed through genetic engineering.  GE allows scientists to transfer genes from one species (living organism) into a completely different or unrelated species.  Through GE the genetic code of life forms is deliberately restructured and changed. For example Bt Maize is maize that has been made insect resistant through GE.  A bacteria which is naturally found in soil and which produces a toxin which kills the borer worm is inserted in to the genetic code of maize plants.  Bt maize plants have a built in pesticide.

Concerns

Promoters of GMOs claim that without GM crops the hunger problems of the world cannot be solved.  On the other hand there are many concerned scientists and civil society groups who question the safety and necessity of GM crops.   

• There is incomplete knowledge of the long-term effects of GMOs on human health and on the environment.
• Genetic Engineering is irreversible and once an organism is genetically changed it cannot be undone.
• There is a danger of disturbing the biological balance in nature by creating species that normally do not exist.
• Multinational Companies own patents and intellectual property rights for GM seeds which give them power and control over such seeds and the farmers who plant them.
• There is valid concern about the moral and ethical aspects of forceful manipulation of life forms.
• In the absence of mandatory labeling laws for GMOs, South African citizens are denied the right to choose whether to eat GM foods or not.

Source ‘Stand up and Speak up’, an environmental justice resource booklet produced in 2008 by SACBC.

See page 3 for more detail.

A health care worker sensitizing the community about HIV/AIDS

Clients waiting to be tested by mobile VCT team

A nurse testing a client during a mobile VCT visit

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