All posts by snddenGW

ABOUT This blog is an experiment from our initial Good Works blog on WordPress (snddenGW). Good Works is our printed international Mission Support magazine. It is published three times a year by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur’s Congregational Mission Office. A link to our downloadable, full edition .pdf file is available on our main website: sndden.org or our Good Works – International Magazine Archive. We are experimenting with this “2014 Theme″ template that is designed to automatically scale for desktop, tablet, and smart phone size screens. From your past feedback, we are learning that over 60 percent of you are sending prayer intentions from our mobile websites (if on a smart phone) and 40% from our main site from desktops and tablets. This blog edition will be “tweeted” and announced on Facebook when we are ready to “go pubic.” Please add your feedback in the comment section on any page. It will really be helpful and we move ahead with our social media efforts.
Brazil, educating for life, Good Works, Grupo Grito pela Vida, Ministry, Networking, Shouting for Life, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Trafficking, World Cup 2014

Shouting for Life

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by Sister Betsy Mary Flynn, SNDdeN

Shouting for Life PhotoBrazil will host the World Cup in June-July 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Mega sports events increase the market for human trafficking. On January 9, 2014, The Guardian predicted increased child sex trade: Brazil’s Child Sex Trade Soars as 2014 World Cup Nears. The Church in Brazil has chosen human trafficking for the theme of the Lenten Campaign. Catholics throughout the country will study, pray and take action against human trafficking during this season.

Since 2009, religious Congregations from different countries have organized in small groups globally for education awareness, prevention, denouncement of human trafficking, and the protection of actual and potential victims. In Brazil, Sisters of Notre Dame serve with an anti-trafficking group, called Shouting for Life, known in Portuguese as Grupo Grito pela Vida. Read the rest of Sr. Betsy article: Shouting for Life

www.sndden.org | www.notredameonline.org | snddenGW.wordpress.com
Reprinted with permission. Good Works Magazine 

agricultural education, community gardens, educating for life, Fe y Alegria No. 48, Good Works, planting education, Poverty, Rural Schools, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, sustainability, Tambogrande

Shovels Become Educational Tools

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… TEACHING SUSTAINABILITY

Tilling and Planting ProcessThe Farm Project is another way for IMEC (International Medical Equipment Collaborative) to share resources for sustainability and to collaborate in an educational project in partnership with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. For our schools in Peru, the project will allow for effective teaching and accessibility to resources needed to tend the earth. Sr. Marleny and the staff in the Tambogrande region are planning to extend this learning and make equipment accessible to the students’ families. IMEC is shipping 40 Farm Suites to Peru in this first phase of the Farming Program. Expanding involvement in our partnership with IMEC enables SNDs to bring about growth for more people in this rural area. We are able also to envision new possibilities for our sisters and brothers who live in poverty in other cultures and countries around our fragmented world. Shovels Become Educational Tools

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Fourth Week of Lent

 

agricultural education, community gardens, educating for life, Fe y Alegria No. 48, PE, planting education, Rural Schools, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, sustainability, Tambogrande

New Challenges for SNDs in Peru

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NewChallengeforSNDsinPERU-3The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in the Peru/Nicaragua Province have accepted a new challenge. They have a new mission in the rural area of Tambogrande, north of Lima, Peru. The Sisters are now administering a network of schools, with a central office in Malingas. Sr. Marleny, SNDdeN is the Director of the Rural Network Programme “Fe y Alegria” No. 48. She is administrator for 31 schools in 15 villages. She works with 100 teachers and a team of 10 people who assist her in accompanying the teachers. There are 2,147 pupils at initial, primary, secondary and adult levels. Learn more…  NewChallengeforSNDsinPERU

Websites: sndden.org
Fourth Week of Lent features a new video: “Hoes and Hope in Tambogrande, Peru”
Find more information about the Sisters of Notre Dame’s Educational Networks at NotreDameOnLine.org

Good Works, Ministry, Native Americans, Poverty, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, St. Bonaventure Mission School

Beauty & Desert Poverty in Navajo Land

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GoodWorks_xSt. Bonaventure Mission in Thoreau , New Mexico is located in the midst of this beauty and desert poverty. This Mission is an oasis, a special place where Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, with other caring and devoted people from all areas of the United States, minister to God’s people living in poverty. On this Navajo Land, specific ministries include providing housing for low-income families, repairing roofs, delivering water, building outhouses for those with no water, food and other much needed supplies such as blankets and clothing. Many hundreds of donors who assist us by their financial gifts provide these goods and services. Our “Outreach” department provides employment for Navajo people. The major ministry at the Mission is St. Bonaventure School, a preschool and elementary school through the 8th grade.
BeautyandDesertPovertyinNavajoLand

www.SNDdeN.org   and  www.stbonaventuremission.org

Abandoned Orphans, Congo, Ngidinga, Orphans in the Congo, Pelende, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

Sisters Care for Orphans in the Congo

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Sr. Patience Women in Congo bear the load of work in the home and in the fields. Women fetch wood, find food and prepare daily meals while attending to all the needs for their families. The work continues even while women are pregnant. Lack of good nutrition, poverty, malaria, infectious diseases, complications of HIV/AIDS and the inaccessibility of good health care contribute to high mortality of women following the birth of their babies. The babies become abandoned orphans, left to tend for themselves without food, clothing, shelter or education. The Sisters have assumed responsibility for more than 50 orphans in the towns and villages where we minister: Kimwenza, Kisantu, Kisenso, Kitenda, Lemfu, Mpese, Ngidinga, Nselo and Pelende. Continue Reading: Sisters Care for Orphans in the Congo

Lent Week Two
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Abandoned Orphans, Clinic, Congo, Good Works, Health Clinic, Kimwenza, Maternity Clinic, Orphans in the Congo, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

SNDs Open Clinic in Kimwenza, Congo

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Sr Adrienne, an SND NurseThe people of Kimwenza, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and its surrounding villages marveled at the opening of the René de Haes Health and Maternity Center (Centre de Santé/Maternité René De Haes), a new health care ministry of the Congo-Kinshasa Province. In a poor and confined milieu, adjoining the property of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Monseigneur Fidèle Nsielele, Bishop of the Kisantu Diocese, officiated at the opening of this center (“the Clinic”) on October 31, 2009. Many religious, civil and political leaders joined the SNDs and the people for a joyous ceremony of blessing, marking direct access to a clinic in this area, so deprived of medical care for those living in poverty. Continue Reading: SNDsOpenClinicinKimwenza, Congo

Lent Week Two
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Brazil, Breves, Good Works, Island of Marajó, Ministry, Pará, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

Jubilee Joy: 50 Years in Brazil

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“Every day, we help adults, adolescents and children to become conscious of their dignity, particularly through Bible study and popular education.”

SNDdeNs-BrazilSisters Respond to Needs

On Marajó Island, Pará, Sr. Rita Raboin works with the diocesan Justice and Peace Commission, the Land Pastoral and in community organizing.  Due to a precarious system of water delivery and waste control, Marajó’s unhealthy water supply has become a critical issue. Sr. Maria Socorro de Oliveira, returning from English study in Ohio, USA, will soon begin a new ministry among the people in Breves.

Read more:  JubileeJoy50YearsinBrazil
Lenten Theme Week One

http://www.SNDdeN.org

Brazil, Breves, Good Works, Island of Marajó, Jardim Tropical, Pará, Planters of Peace, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Tropical Garden

Planters of Peace Nurture Hope in Brazil

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We and the youth with whom we work are providing an island of hope in Jardim Tropical. A group of 30 to 40 young people that I (Sister Maria) facilitate are active in a weekly youth group. These youth help prepare the liturgy and also participate in novenas, processions, preparation for baptism, a nutrition program for babies, and protest marches – all activities that energize our community. The youth named their group “Planters of Peace,” a significant choice in light of their neighborhood situation.

“There is so much goodness in our young “Planters of Peace.” They are among the reasons why our neighborhood, poor as it is in some ways, deserves to be called “Tropical Garden.” -Sr. Maria

Learn More… PlantersofPeaceNurtureHopeinBrazil

Brazil, Good Works, Island of Marajó, Pará, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

Women and Water: Island of Beauty & Challenge

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Slide4Our Notre Dame community lives on the island of Marajó, on the  largest navigable archipelago in the world, located at the mouth of the amazon river, in the State of Pará, Brazil. This is an island of beauty and challenge! The people find their means of support in extraction of açai for juice, palm hearts, wood from family-owned sawmills, and fishing. Some plant and sell cassava, rice, or beans. In our county, there is 80% unemployment, gang violence, drug trafficking, and other criminal activity. Unable to find jobs, the people are migrating from the river communities and searching for schools for their children. Our neighborhood with 4000 persons and 853 families, on the periphery of Breves, does not  have any school, health clinic nor potable water. Our streets are muddy in the rainy season and dusty in the dry season. Most women work in homes of wealthy families; the men find odd jobs daily. On days when adults do not work, the families do not eat….
Read the full story in GoodWorksJune2011 on pages 8-9.