Annual Fund Drive 2009-2010
By God’s grace and your continued generosity, Catholic World Mission was blessed to continue our life-transforming service to the poor in 2009. This year, your generosity has enabled Catholic World Mission to build upon one of our most successful programs ever; providing emergency food and medicine shipments to those who need it most. We are now able to send these shipments consistently two times each year to the great relief of Mother Joan (of the Missionaries of the Poor) who can now count on your ongoing generosity. Each one of these shipments provides life-saving food and medicine for over 30,000 men, women and children in the Philippines. 
Catholic World Mission also helped provide support for 10 HELPING HANDS Medical Missions including our second trip to the continent of Africa. In fact, our medical missionaries were so well received that we have added this mission trip to Africa to our list of annual medical missions. Over the past five years, our ETCs (Full-time Lay Missionaries) have encouraged over 500 vocations to the Church with their work in Mexico. Finally, our Mano Amiga School in Manila, Philippines, which opened two years ago, has grown from 35 students to 70 students.
Building on these great successes, I am pleased to announce Catholic World Mission’s Annual Fund Drive for 2009-10. This year our drive will focus on our Mano Amiga Child Sponsorships. I am excited by the continued expansion of our Mano Amiga program and by the quality of the Mano Amiga schools which offer an integral formation and high quality academics to those most in need and their families. Since opening our doors in 1963, we have witnessed the transformation of entire slums into middle class neighborhoods – only 10 to 20 years later (see the picture of La Cima inside our brochure). Currently there are 34 schools (serving close to 21,000 students) helping to conquer poverty with the richness of our Catholic faith and these schools have a 85% graduation rate!
The urgency of the Mano Amiga Annual Fund Drive is two-fold: continued expansion to provide solid educational opportunities to those who need them most and the reality of a underdeveloped economy – most families in Latin America survive on less than $300 per month ($3,500 a year) which sustains an average family of five. Education becomes a luxury for only those who can afford to pay for it.
Our goal for the 2009-10 Deus Caritas Est Campaign is also two-fold: to raise $150,000 to help meet this need, and to achieve a high rate of new sponsor participation by securing 50 new full sponsorships by December 31st 2009.
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Success Story in El Salvador
In January the Minister of Education, Darlyn Meza announced her support for the Mano Amiga High School and that students will receive a technical diploma. This will enable them to receive a full year credit in the national technical higher education system. The announcement was made during her first visit to the school.
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This year I invite you to please consider transforming the life of a poor girl or boy in Latin America by providing them an opportunity to attend a Mano Amiga School. Imagine what a tremendous advantage a child has when receiving a solid Catholic education and therefore the tools needed to break the vicious cycle of poverty that restricts everything around them. Will you help transform a child’s life and future with a sacrificial gift? Imagine what a tremendous advantage a child has when receiving a solid Catholic education and therefore the tools needed to break the vicious cycle of poverty that restricts everything around them!
As part of your sponsorship, you will receive:
- An introduction packet that will include information about your child and his family
- An opportunity for written correspondence.
You have a new opportunity to make a lasting impact now and for all eternity, by investing in the future of a needy soul who needs your help.
We are reminded in the Church document “Ecclesia in America” (The Church in America). “The Church in America must incarnate in her pastoral initiatives the solidarity of the universal Church towards the poor and the outcast of every kind. Her attitude needs to be one of assistance, promotion, liberation and fraternal openness. The goal of the Church is to ensure that no one is marginalized.” I believe the Mano Amiga School is a concrete way to help the Church carry out this important pastoral initiative.
Thank you for joining us in prayer for the success of our Deus Caritas Est Campaign. Your generosity inspires us, as committed followers of Christ. I, along with the seminarians of my prelature in the Yucatan (many of whom are Mano Amiga graduates themselves), want to thank you again for your prayers and support. Be assured you are in our prayers today and every day of this most necessary campaign.
Education Main
