St Vincent de Paul: How we help our twins

The
Catholic Weekly
Online

Sydney
18 April 2004

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St Vincent de Paul: How we help our twins

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St Vincent de Paul: How we help our twins

WELCOME: Joyce and Val Gonsalves, visitors from Pakistan

By JOHN O’NEILL

Partnerships in life play an important role in our own development and understanding of the world around us. They allow us to support, comfort and care for one another.

Our life largely involves constructing, developing and maintaining partnerships with our neighbours.

In the St Vincent de Paul Society, Twinning – developing overseas partnerships – is an established way of extending the Society, particularly in developing countries.

Through Twinning, members of the Society can support one another spiritually, financially and through mutual encouragement.

The three commitments of Twinning centre on:

1. A sharing of affinity of spirituality by the exchange of prayers;

2. A sharing of culture, friendship and knowledge by the exchange of letters;

3. A sharing of our financial resources with a monthly contribution.

Through the St Vincent de Paul Society, Vincentians work with the poor and marginalised on a person-to-person basis, developing trust with those they assist as well as developing strong partnerships with other services and agencies so that they may be able to offer the best assistance possible.

Last week, the Society in NSW had the pleasure of welcoming to Lewisham Mr Val Gonsalves, the national president of the Society in Pakistan, and his wife of 40 years, Mrs Joyce Gonsalves.

Mr Gonsalves has been the national president for 24 years, and has been a member of the Society since 1964.

Pakistan was one of the first countries to be twinned with Australia in 1960. Today, there are 300 conferences in Pakistan, 153 of which are twinned with the Society in Australia. Fifty-one conferences are twinned with NSW.

The main assistance provided to Pakistan by the Society in Australia is food and clothing, as well as the provision to a lesser degree of school books, uniforms, medical needs, education, bicycles and assistance towards farm projects.

In the midst of this material assistance and support, the Societies in Australia and Pakistan, as well as in other twinned countries, share a mutual concern for the poor and marginalised and are bonded together by their spirituality.

There are approximately 150 million people in Pakistan, with only one percent of the population Catholic.

It is inspiring to see the commitment of this minority group to their faith, particularly when there are

3000 Society members in this Islam-dominated country.

As with most of our twins, Pakistan’s main area of concern is education. Illiteracy rates are increasingly high. Well over 60 per cent of the population is affected.

Because of this, the Society in Australia has an ongoing project with Pakistan called the Pakistan Literacy Project.

The project pays the wages of about 30 teachers, at the rate of AU$1500 p.a. Its classes have up to 50 students from disadvantaged families who cannot afford to pay school fees.

Pakistan was allotted 300 sponsorships in last year’s Assist-a-Student program. The sponsorship of $70 per student is used to help pay for the necessities needed to educate each student.

The Society in Australia also gives assistance to Pakistan’s in the form of food and clothing for Afghan refugees; organises sewing centres for women through the donation of new and used sewing machines; supports conferences giving rations to the needy and assists the aged.

The life expectancy of people in Pakistan is 60 years which, in comparison to Australia and other Western countries, is very low.

Australia assists Pakistan with medical supplies and funding for medicial and health services. What most people are unhappy with in our country, most Pakistani people would wish to have.

Without Twinning, countries such as Pakistan are left without the financial, material and spiritual support they need to continue to help people who are living in poverty and seclusion.

It is interesting to note that at a plenary meeting of the Society in Paris in 1979, it was agreed that “all monies collected in the name of the Society anywhere belong in principle to the poor of the world”.

We have an obligation, just as the rich man in the parable had, to listen and respond to Lazarus .

We in Australia have this opportunity now while we are in the rich man’s position. And while it is not easy to do so, we must pray for that generosity.

Meanwhile, there are homeless people, and hungry mouths crying out for a feed in those countries lacking the government services that we enjoy in Australia.

Keep smiling and God bless.