|
Hope for the Village Child |
|
Great Bend Dominican Sisters’ Mission in Nigeria, Africa ¨ Great Bend Dominican Sisters’ Journey to Africa: The Era 1952 to 1973 ¨ Gusau, Nigeria 2007: Congregation Receives Diocesan Status Sr Rita Schwarzenberger’s Current Ministry in Nigeria, Africa with Hope for the Village Child |
|
Ministry in Nigeria, 1997 to 2001 By Sr Rita Schwarzenberger
Just before I left the country, I was approached by an Alhaji to help him organize more than four hundred community development associations scattered throughout Nigeria. This is akin to what I feel when I am asked to put on paper what my ministry entails. My official title, Capacity Building Adviser, involves whatever anyone asks me to do to assist them in building up their organization. Most often what I am asked to do is to facilitate workshops, generally of three days duration, but sometimes longer or shorter. Over the past four years the range has included: vision, planning and organizational development; accountability; gender awareness; peacebuilding and non-violence; social development; justice and peace; role of coordinator (for justice, development and peace coordinators and health coordinators); collaborative ministry; AIDS, health services; Catholic social teaching; and strategic planning and team building. In addition, I have been involved in several evaluations, mostly of health ministries and health institutions. All of these ministries involve travel. The furthest distance is about 9 to 10 hours of driving. Over the past four years my clients have included 12 dioceses, 2 international organizations, 3 ecclesiastical provincial groups, 1 national organization, 1 African organization, 6 religious congregations and around 13 NGOs (non-governmental organizations), as well as individual groups within dioceses. Workshops involve, of course, preparation and report writing. Because of the length of time I have spent in this work, I have become a contact person for several international funding agencies. In addition, I receive requests from individuals and groups to assist in project planning and proposal writing, development of organizational structures, report writing, personnel application assessment, fund procurement and orientation of people new in the field of social development. However, the other aspect of ministry in which both Sr Frances (while she was with me) and I have been involved in is perhaps equally as important as the above and reflects the diversity of the life we experience. It is the ministry of witness, personal help and presence — attending to the poor and needy who request assistance, writing a recommendation for a scholarship or employment, listening to people who have to talk out their pain after a religious riot, counseling a young woman who’s been a victim of child sex abuse, praying with those searching for an answer to a problem, helping arrange for dioceses to get new cars (at a cheaper price) through contacts at the factory, entertaining the Muslim children from next door (children whose father has a poster of Osama bin Laden on the wall), welcoming people who are passing through, getting background material together for a Sister who has been asked to give a parish retreat, discussing with professionals the implications of the debt problem and economic globalization—and so many more. When I am asked why I am going back to Nigeria and I reflect on the needs as well as the potential for ministry as touched on above, it seems that there is still a need for us as Great Bend Dominicans to have a presence in an area where there is a great need for works in the vineyard. |
