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AIDS Outreach: Africa

Committee Updates

Our next committee meeting is Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010, at 10 a.m. in the St. Charles library (next to the parish office), where we'll discuss two upcoming fundraisers: the Donate a Desk Drive for Sierra Leone at the end of September and the Kenya Godparent Drive. All are invited to attend!

Many thanks to those who made our Mothers' Day flower and cupcake sale a huge success! From the $3,500 raised, we were able to help complete a new classroom building at St. George Primary School in the village of Bakolo, Sierra Leone. You can view some photos of the construction in our Flickr collection.

Special thanks also to everyone who joined us for our May 2, 2010, Conversation with Creedon on the "Stories of Struggle, Stories of Hope: Women in the Developing World".

Purpose of the AIDS Outreach: Africa Ministry

Our Ministry has the following objectives:

• Increase our community's awareness of the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on families in Africa through educational and promotional events
• Provide our parishioners with concrete opportunities to provide moral and financial support to affected families through the efforts of Catholic organizations implementing community empowerment and development strategies in Africa
• Conduct fund-raising activities to support selected projects of our Catholic partner organizations in Africa
• Make personal contact through the good will of our community members who visit African countries or who work in African communities

The Problem

An estimated 1.1 million children were orphaned due to HIV/AIDS-related deaths in Kenya alone, according to UNICEF's statistics for 2005.

Many orphans are themselves infected with HIV. Many others are not. Nevertheless, they all need a lot of help!

Our Approach

Our ministry supports small, achievable interventions that make a real impact in the lives of children and communities.

In Kenya, we support the Crisis Assessment and Recovery (CARE) Centre in the Kibera slums of Nairobi. The center (formerly known as the Riara AIDS Project) is under the direction of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

The CARE Centre seeks to create communities of peace by serving the pastoral, spiritual, psycho-social, health and physical needs of the person holistically. In the Kibera slums in particular, the center ministers to adults and children living with HIV, their caregivers and the orphans.

For the 2010 school year, the St. Charles community generously donated $38,800 and sponsored 194 students' education -- an increase from $20,000 and 112 children the previous year. Each "godparent sponsorship" of $200 covered a child's school fees, uniforms, shoes, food, boarding facility and learning materials for the school year.

In addition, more than $15,000 has been sent to Kenya, Uganda and Sierra Leone for education-related programs over the past few years.

Activities to Date

St. Charles Borromeo AIDS Outreach: Africa Ministry has sponsored the following activities:

• A psychological support program for caregivers, designed to reduce burnout
• A program to increase the effectiveness of teachers who work with AIDS orphans
and vulnerable children in the Kibera slum
• Sponsorship for primary school students -paying for their school fees, uniforms, books and pens
• Micro-credit to market women
• After-school recreation program

Our Direct Connection

Personal involvement of our parishioners is a key element of our ministry. St. Charles parishioner and ministry leader Gail Goodridge moved to Kenya for work and identified the Riara AIDS Project in Nairobi, which later became known as the CARE Centre, as the first project to receive our support.

Sister Janet Crane, a School Sister of Notre Dame, is a pastoral care educator for the CARE Centre and our point of contact there. She also is the sibling of one of our committee members!

How You Can Get Involved

The AIDS Outreach: Africa Ministry encourages all levels of involvement. In Africa, we support the CARE Centre, but at home we also work to educate our own community of St. Charles. Ways to participate include:

• Join the ministry (Contact our chairwomen in the upper right-hand corner of this page)
• Help organize and run educational or fund-raising events
• Attend educational and/or fund-raising activities
• Help fund AIDS Outreach: Africa Ministry activity through your donations (Contributions by check can be made any Sunday through the St. Charles collection basket by indicating “AIDS Outreach: Africa” on the memo line. Many thanks!)