Through the financial gifts of our supporters over the past year, SOMA responded to several short-term projects relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most dealt with supplemental food distributions—parishioners at a Spiritan parish in Fonte Boa, Brazil; seminarians in lock down in Kenya; a nursery school in the Kibera slum of Nairobi.

Another responded to the real, then immediate, needs of a Spiritan health center in Ethiopia. The grant to the Dhadim Catholic Health Center allowed the facility director, Fr. Kenneth Iwunna, C.S.Sp., to purchase medicine and supplies, hand sanitizer, face masks, and bar soap to be distributed to those from the six surrounding villages, comprising 580 households.

The medical supplies included medicines to treat topical infections, pain, bacterial infections, chest infections and salt deficiency, a few of the common maladies suffered by those seen at the clinic.

Fr. Iwunna says that, “One of the many positive results of this $6,200 project is the availability of the medicine and supplies and the joy people have whenever they come to the clinic for treatment. Receiving these items puts smiles on the faces of the people when they come for treatment...I would say you are giving hope to the hopeless."

Most importantly the project has helped in creating awareness about the pandemic, and the critical role that good hygiene and sanitation practices play in combating the virus.

Says Kabelle Wariyo, wife and mother of two children in Dhadim, Ethiopia, who recently visited the clinic:
“We burn dry trees in the bush and make charcoal out of it and sell. That is how we have been surviving. I came here to this clinic because my little baby is sick. This is the only clinic around here in this village, and the clinic has been helping all of us in this village who could not afford going to hospital.

The clinic gives us free medicine, free treatment and sometimes, people deliver their babies in this clinic without any cost. We are very happy to have this clinic around us...So, we are praying that God will continue to support the priests and sisters who work in this clinic, so that they can also continue to support us, we are very poor people. God bless you.”

You can be instrumental in changing people’s lives by your continuing support of the mission projects of the Spiritans.

Originally published in the Summer 2021 One Heart, One Spirit newsletter.