Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of Mary Help of Christians Preprovince (AES) are partners in a pilot project launched in 2020 in Ethiopia by the Global Solidarity Fund (GSF), an alliance that promotes partnerships for the most vulnerable in the private sector, in development, and in Catholic communities. The Project is carried out in collaboration with female and male religious congregations, with the aim of supporting, giving a job, and restoring hope to internally displaced young people, “returning” migrants and refugees from other African Countries (cf. Vatican News).
The Provincial, Sr. Marie Dominique Mwema Mukato, and Sr. Nieves Crespo, a missionary, recount the main steps of this Project:
“Two years ago, with the help and initiative of the GSF, we started dreaming of a plan to give a response to the most vulnerable young people, especially girls, in Addis Abeba. That dream took shape and became a pilot project that has employed more than 500 young people so far.
In Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, we, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, find ourselves working together with the Missionaries of Charity (the Sisters of Mother Teresa), the Ursuline Sisters, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS – refugees), and the Salesians of Don Bosco. It is an inter-congregational response in which everyone has a role to offer a quality response to the poorest and most disadvantaged young people.
For a few months, the Sisters of Mother Teresa follow the young women who, mostly from rural areas in search of work and a better future, are deceived and often become pregnant. The Sisters accompany them until they give birth and take care of them for the first three months. With the support of GSF, the Project continues through two foster homes, where the girls can stay with their children, while they receive vocational training and are helped to find a job.
In this phase, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians have taken a significant commitment, opening the doors of the Provincial House and welcoming 17 mothers with their children. However, the fundamental role of the FMA is that of education. For this reason, courses have been created that are suitable for the needs of the young people, in order to be able to insert them into the world of work.
At Mary Help School in Addis Ababa, there are courses in tailoring (cutting and sewing) lasting 5 months; IT courses with CISCO international accreditation; and ‘Care giving’ courses; assistance to children, the elderly; and domestic services. The courses are attended by the mothers of the two reception centers instituted with the Project and by a good number of migrants followed by JRS, who have come to Addis Ababa from various neighboring Countries, fleeing war or in situations of economic poverty that force them to leave in search for a better future. Many of them, in fact, are here to try to move to other Countries where they can find new life opportunities and many others try to rebuild their lives in the capital.
Our role in this precious inter-congregational project does not end here. We have succeeded to open in the same College, a job search and placement service through which, based on the condition of each of our students, we are able to find them a job that is the turning point to rediscover the dignity that so many of them have lost due to the harshness of life.
At the same time, our house has been transformed into a nursery school, where many of the mothers who lived with us during their studies and now work and rent outside the mission, come every morning to bring their children to us and take them back in the evening when the work day is over.
For us Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, it is a great joy to be part of this Project and, above all, to discover how these young women, who arrived in our house and in our School without any hope, managed to take back their lives, to make peace with the past that many times tried them mercilessly and, above all, to accept and love their child. Once again, we experience how, through love and accompaniment, by providing quality education and, above all, by placing them in the world of work, these young migrants and displaced people manage to rediscover their lost dignity and fight for a hopeful future that they couldn’t even see before.”
On 3 July 2023, Sister Nieves Crespo spoke in Rome, at the headquarters of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), at the Sister-led dialogue on migration, a day of study and dialogue on the theme of migration promoted by the UISG in collaboration with the GSF (cf. Vatican News). Sister Nieves summarizes the experience:
“It was a privilege and a gift to be able to participate in a meeting of this size in which we, Sisters of different congregations, sat down at a table to dialogue with various actors on the phenomenon of migration. We had the presence of organizations that experience the daily life of migrants at sea (Open Arms and Doctors Without Borders); the stories of migrants who have experienced it firsthand; of Institutions that seek to give migrants a voice at the positions in which political decisions are made… A group of people with a certain sensitivity, who dedicate their lives to the most vulnerable, organizations committed to them, and consecrated persons who believe in an international network of religious congregations that can give a valid response to the appeal of the Pope to go to the peripheries.
One of the most repeated ideas concerns the necessary change of paradigm and narrative in terms of the perception of the migratory phenomenon. The conviction resonates strongly that everyone, regardless of race, religion or place of birth, is a citizen of a world with equal rights and duties. In this perspective, as Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, we are convinced that education is the key to bring about a new type of citizenship in which all human rights are respected”.
