Sydney
31 August 2003
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Sr Renée Heraud, missionary - Vila’s diminutive media dynamo
Why
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Conversation: Sr Renée Heraud, missionary - Vila’s diminutive media dynamo
By Marilyn Rodrigues
Marist Missionary Sr Renée Heraud (pictured), a sprightly 72-year-old Frenchwoman, faces some interesting challenges as the director of Vanuatu’s Catholic Media Centre.
Sr Renée, who is based in the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila, on the island of Éfaté, has been in Australia as a guest at the Australasian Catholic Press Association conference in Canberra.
She is the only full time paid staff member at the Catholic Media Centre, responsible for the Port Vila diocese’s newspaper, Eklesia, plus radio programs and the video-taping and editing of its major Church events.
Eklesia has been published every two months since 1991 in a mix of three languages spoken in the Vanuatu archipelago - French, English and Bichelamar (the national ‘pidgin’ tongue).
The Catholic radio programs are presented as a series that runs over one week every seven weeks.
It begins with a one-hour Sunday evening program which features the Bishop of Port Vila diocese, Bishop Michel Visi, and then continues for 10-14 minutes each morning and evening throughout the week with a reading of the liturgy of the day, meditation, songs and prayers.
Programming finishes at the end of the week with a recording of Mass in Port Vila’s Sacred Heart Cathedral.
Sr Renée is assisted in her work by two women volunteers.
The diminutive but inspiring nun had been teaching in primary schools in Vanuatu and working in teacher training when, in 1980, the year of Vanuatu’s independence, the then bishop of Port Vila bishop asked her to go to France for media training.
So the then 50-year-old Sr Renée went back to school to learn about still photography; video photography and editing; and interviewing and print journalism.
Her job is demanding.
The radio programs are free to run, but the newspaper is not.
It is suffering a loss because its only source of income is from sales to a poor population.
Sr Renée says that the economy is such that few people are willing to spend money on advertising. And the diocese cannot afford to contribute any funds either.
The situation is so desperate that a question mark hangs over each edition that Sr Renée produces.
She has to be creative in distributing the paper to the widest possible audience.
The week before it goes to print she confronts parishioners at church and reminds them to bring their money - 100 vatu (about $1.20 Australian) - the following weekend.
And on the next weekend, laden with copies, she becomes a paper-seller, promoting Eklesia to the churchgoers.
Parishioners sometimes try to avoid her assertive sales tactics.
“I am there before Mass and again after Mass and people try to get out through another door,” she laughs.
“They like it, but they have difficulty getting enough money to pay school fees for their children. Most of the Catholics are Melanesian people and they are poor.”
Eklesia boasts 110 overseas subscribers but to get the paper around Vanuatu from Port Vila, Sr Renée gets anyone she knows who is travelling to any of the other islands to take some copies in their luggage for the nearest parish priest to sell.
“The government also taxes us 12.5 per cent of what we have to pay the printers,” she says.
“But we’re happy and proud of the newspaper. It is in colour, on glossy paper and with beautiful photos.”
Sr Renée perseveres because she believes Eklesia plays an important part in building up the Catholic Church in Vanuatu.
Although 76.7 per cent of Vanuatu’s population of 199,420 is Christian, only 15 per cent of the inhabitants are Catholic.
“Vanuatu is an archipelago, 700km from the north island to the south island, and the Catholics are dispersed among the different islands,” she explains.
(The Y-shaped archipelago, formerly the French-British condominium of the New Hebrides, has four main islands and more than 80 other islands. )
“If we had no newspaper, each parish would be closed in on itself.
“They would not get messages from their bishop, or news from the universal Church, and it would be difficult for them to feel that they are part of the universal Church as well as the local Church.
“So I think it is important for them and they like to send articles and photos to share what they are doing in the parishes.
“I also get articles from the Legion of Mary, St Vincent de Paul, youth groups and Catholic education.”
Sr Renée, who is from Brittany, France, has lived in Vanuatu since 1957.
She joined the missionary order in 1951 because she “felt the call to mission overseas”, even though she knew from some young women who had joined the order that it entailed an enormous sacrifice.
“At that time, when you joined you left home for good, and never saw it again for the rest of your life,” she says.
“What can I say?
“It was very difficult leaving everything behind.
“But after the Second Vatican Council we were allowed to return home.”
Sr Renée had her first trip home to France 13 years after she had left for Vanuatu.
She now visits every six years.
She will celebrate her golden jubilee as a fully professed Marist Missionary Sister next year.
Sr Renée says she has learnt a lot from meeting Australians working in Catholic media.
“You make friends, see what they are doing here and how they do it,” she says.
“And everyone has been so very interested and supportive.
“We are doing the same work but I am doing it in a very different context.”
If you would like to support Sr Renée’s efforts with Eklesia, you can write to Sr Renée Heraud SMSM, BP 726, Port-Vila, Vanuatu or you can email her at: katolikmedia@vanuatu.com.vu