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A
TRANSFORMING JOURNEY HILL SCHOOLS Driving along weather beaten tracks that took them up hill and down dale, the group discovered schools hidden among trees where hundreds of children gathered each day to learn from local teachers who shared one text book. COURAGE When asked about their visit the teachers said that: They found courageous teachers and children keen to learn. They saw teachers needing blackboards and children needing desks. They discovered school buildings without windows or doors. They saw school desks made by local craftsmen and agreed to ask their pupils to raise money to buy 500 desks! Most of all they were moved by the vibrant liturgies and deep faith of people rebuilding their lives and seeking ways of living together in a country scarred by the violence of genocide. BIRMINGHAM
- This is just the beginning of a marvellous partnership. Since their return to Birmingham the teachers have involved 70 schools and in June 2003 presented Sister Mary Susan, who is currently on leave from Rwanda, with enough money to cover the cost of 500 desks and replacement blackboards. As the desks are made by local craftsmen, the local population will benefit from the generosity of the teachers and pupils of the primary schools in the Birmingham Archdiocese. The teachers are currently looking at other ways of continuing to help the teachers and pupils in the Mubuga area of Rwanda. Watch this section for updates. PARTNERSHIP - OTHER NEWS Sister Margaret Baxter was invited to join six parishioners from Our Lady and St. Cyril's on a fact finding mission to Bolivia in Central America. Father Bill, their parish priest, had spent many years in Bolivia and the parishioners from his former parish warmly welcomed the Liverpudlians into their homes. Now back home in Liverpool they are seeking ways of helping the people of Father Bill's former parish. Bolivia, 'lying astride the widest point of the Andean Cordillera and spilling down through a maze of tortured hills and valleys into the Amazon Parana Basin…It is the poorest, highest and most isolated of the Latin American republics.' Within the country of Bolivia there lies a people with warm, generous, loving hearts - a people with such deep faith and possessed with a sincere desire for the Church of God to be rooted in the heart of each community. For me, visiting this beautiful place and living for a short time among its people, was a spiritual experience, an experience filled with wonder at how their physical needs were secondary to their 'faith requirements.' Sister Margaret Baxter HARROW - BRAZIL Working as a hospital chaplain has brought Sister Barbara into contact with many people and through the generosity of patients, families and members of staff, £1000 has been sent to our sisters in Poço Verde and Estancia, in the North-West corner of Brazil. The money has helped to launch a project to teach young women basic life-skills such as sewing, cooking, reading and writing. |