Aid to the Church in Need: Mozambique: Support for the formation programmes in Chimoio

Mozambique: Support for the formation programmes in Chimoio

Posted by Project of the Week on 12/10/2009, 8:24 am
Board Administrator

MOZAMBIQUE

Support for the formation programmes in the diocese of Chimoio

Sister Maria Rosa Fernandes da Silva smiles happily, whenever she stands in her herb garden. This garden is her pharmacy. This is where she plants all the herbs with healing properties, with which she can help people who would otherwise be unable to afford any kind of medical treatment. In the diocesan formation centre, which she runs, she teaches the women the correct use of these plants. One particular plant helps against fever, another against stomach cramps – and all are free of charge and without side-effects. The women are allowed to take seedlings and cuttings back home with them to plant in their own gardens.

But that is not all the educational centre of Marera in the diocese of Chimoio has to offer. For instance there are also formation courses for catechists – of vital importance in a diocese covering an area of around 24,000 square miles (61,000 km²) and which, according to the pontifical yearbook, has just five priests. In fact these priests too can receive further training in this centre. Also extremely important are the courses on AIDS prevention. In a region where almost a quarter of the population is HIV positive and where 65% of those infected are aged between 15 and 24, the Church has to be able to form awareness among the people and offer a concept of living that is grounded in Catholic teaching and in which fidelity within marriage and chastity outside it are recognized as fundamental and life-saving values. In this way young people especially can learn how to live a genuinely Christian life and be prepared to understand what it means to live as man and wife, as a married couple and as parents. Such initiation, the transition to adult life, is something very important in African cultures. Traditionally, young people are initiated into adult life in the villages via a variety of different rites and learn from their elders how they are supposed to live. Although many positive values are conveyed in this way, there are also many pagan elements, which cannot be reconciled with Catholic teaching. And so the Church is endeavouring to incorporate all that is good in the various different cultures – such as the traditional value placed on the family and on the woman as the life-giver – and to in some sense rediscover these values, in the light of the Gospel, to include them in the Christian life of the people and thus, so to speak, to "baptise" the culture. In this way the young people are encouraged not to break with their culture, which would leave them rootless and lost in the world, but rather to learn what it means to truly be a Christian in the real and concrete environment in which they live.

At the same time the centre offers practical development aid programmes, since some 90% of the people in this region live from the land, cultivating their own small plot of land and managing to scratch little more than a meagre living from its produce. And so the Church is helping in a very practical way to improve their lives. Here, as everywhere in Africa, education is one of the most important keys to a better future. As Bishop Francisco Joao Silota of Chimoio recently explained to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), almost the entire infrastructure in his diocese was destroyed during the civil war.

ACN has promised him a grant of $16,000 so that the training centre in Marera can continue to make its precious and vital contribution to the life of the diocese.

To help this cause please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

Sister Maria Rosa Fernandes da Silva shows us her medicinal herb garden

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org