Monday, December 20, 2010
Our 3 projects in India have been successfully completed in 2010
The three tsunami relief and recovery projects in India that Mary Mother of Peace-Medjugorje Charity has implemented in cooperation with the GlobalGiving Foundation in the US and our partner Jesus Youth/Jeevana Samridhi in Kochi since 2005 are now completed (December 2010). These projects are:
1/ Tsunami recovery in four fishermen villages in Kerala and Tamil Nadu
2/ Tsunami recovery in five coastal villages in Kerala and Tamil Nadu
3/ Bicycles for poor students in India
Thank you again for all those who contributed and made a difference in the life of so many families and children in need!
1/ Tsunami recovery in four fishermen villages in Kerala and Tamil Nadu
2/ Tsunami recovery in five coastal villages in Kerala and Tamil Nadu
3/ Bicycles for poor students in India
Thank you again for all those who contributed and made a difference in the life of so many families and children in need!
Good News :Ten youth are putting France on the move (text in French)
Dix jeunes font bouger la France
Voici un coup de projecteur – naturellement non exhaustif – sur dix jeunes, pour la plupart passés par les Journées Mondiales de la Jeunesse (JMJ), qui participent aujourd’hui au renouveau spirituel en France
Lors d'un concert du groupe Glorious,
le 4 avril 2010 au festival de Pâques de Chartres
(Photo Virginia CASTRO/CIRIC).
Ils ont entre 18 et 35 ans. Sont mariés ou célibataires. Étudiants ou déjà bien implantés dans la vie active. Ce qui les fédère ? Une extraordinaire créativité, un charisme personnel évident et une volonté farouche d’imprimer leur marque dans le monde qui les entoure… et dans l’Église. Car ces jeunes catholiques convaincus, marqués par le besoin de s’affirmer dans une société sécularisée, ont créé de nouvelles manières de vivre la foi. Parfaitement en phase avec la culture médiatique dans laquelle ils ont grandi, plutôt citadins, à l’image d’un catholicisme qui se recompose dans les grandes villes.
Que ce soit dans le champ social, en politique, ou dans la vie spirituelle : rien n’a changé sur le fond. Mais sur la forme, ils ont su innover. Au risque, parfois, de bousculer les structures établies. Proches des communautés nouvelles – mais pas toujours –, s’inscrivant d’instinct dans le sillage de Vatican II, ces jeunes n’ont pas attendu que l’institution vienne les chercher : ils vont au-devant des aspirations de leurs contemporains. Certains sont des fondateurs, d’autres redonnent une nouvelle jeunesse à des mouvements existants.
Ces jeunes « entrepreneurs » refusent les étiquettes. Ils rêvent d’une Église décomplexée, en prise avec le monde – réel et virtuel –, ouverte aux autres religions. Le creuset commun de cette génération : les JMJ, rendez-vous d’une jeunesse catholique mondialisée, proposé par Jean-Paul II. Tout en étant attachés à la figure du pape, ils cultivent une certaine distance à l’égard de l’institution, et ne sont pas à un paradoxe près.
On pourra leur objecter des imprudences de francs-tireurs, une liberté de ton qui ne s’embarrasse pas des protocoles, une certaine difficulté à s’inscrire dans la durée ou dans une dynamique collective. On leur reprochera de ne pas être représentatifs, ajouteront certains. Mais tous, à leur manière, ont su redonner le goût de l’Église à de nombreux jeunes.
1. Samuel Grzybowski (18 ans), nouveau visage de l’interreligieux
Il n’a que 18 ans, le visage encore juvénile et vient de passer son bac. Mais Samuel Grzybowski témoigne d’une maturité étonnante. Car ce Parisien enjoué, qui a « lu Vatican II à 17 ans » et aime à citer Christian de Chergé, a su très vite se faire un nom dans l’univers du dialogue interreligieux.
« Notre génération est confrontée à une diversité religieuse inédite. Nous sommes convaincus qu’il en va de la survie de l’humanité que d’accepter la voie de la rencontre », résume Samuel, créateur en 2008 de l’association « Coexister » avec ses amis juifs et musulmans.
Cet été, ils se rendront ensemble aux JMJ de Madrid. « Il ne s’agit pas de tolérance, mais de défendre une coexistence active, un dialogue capable de produire des actions concrètes », insiste-t-il, citant les opérations « don du sang » organisées par l’association.
Soutenus par la Conférence mondiale des religions pour la paix, Samuel et ses amis prévoient d’organiser un « voyage de la paix » en Terre sainte, en 2012.
2. Marie Payen (28 ans), 100% diocèse
À 28 ans, Marie Payen a renoncé à un emploi confortable chez un des plus grands éditeurs français pour prendre la responsabilité de la pastorale des jeunes du diocèse de Cambrai, où elle coordonne le dispositif des JMJ de Madrid. « Je suis très attachée à l’Église diocésaine. Pour moi, c’est la proximité, le seul lieu qui permet de vivre sa foi au quotidien », explique cette Lilloise d’origine, qui fut pendant deux ans permanente à Taizé, où elle pilota deux rencontres internationales.
Elle sera, par la suite, l’une des chevilles ouvrières du grand pèlerinage étudiant « Aux sources. Terre sainte 2009 », chargée d’assurer le lien avec les diocèses. Artiste à ses heures – elle réalise des vitraux pour les églises –, cette jeune femme pétillante n’a qu’une ambition : « Permettre aux jeunes du Nord de nouer des relations d’amitié dans le Christ, de vivre leur foi sans complexe et de se mettre au service des familles modestes d’un diocèse, qui malgré ses fragilités, ne manque pas de dynamisme. »
3. Koz (35 ans), l’avocat-blogueur du pape
Son univers de prédilection : les blogs, Facebook, Twitter. Koz est une référence sur Internet. C’est d’abord comme blogueur politique qu’il s’est fait connaître, avant de faire son « coming out catho » lors du voyage de Benoît XVI en France, en 2006.
Depuis, cet avocat d’affaires, qui « pour des raisons professionnelles » préfère garder l’anonymat, consacre ses plaidoyers aux chrétiens d’Irak, au préservatif et, défenseur d’un catholicisme décomplexé – « de contre-culture » –, il croise le fer sur Internet dès lors qu’on attaque le pape. « L’Église a besoin de voix non autorisées qui puissent la représenter sans l’engager officiellement », martèle-t-il.
L’an dernier, « l’Appel à la vérité » qu’il a lancé avec d’autres en pleine crise des affaires de pédophilie a recueilli 40 000 signatures. Koz participe à la plate-forme commune des « Sacristains » avec d’autres jeunes blogueurs catholiques. Dans la « vraie vie », ce trentenaire marié, père de trois enfants, est engagé dans sa paroisse.
4. Emile Duport (30 ans), militant pour la vie
Physique de rugbyman, mèche de rocker et grande gueule, Émile Duport, 30 ans, ne manque pas de charisme. Sur une scène de concert, avec son groupe « Elles et ils sonnent », ou en grand organisateur de la « Life parade », sa gouaille et ses convictions font de lui un rassembleur.
Agacé par des positions trop extrêmes de certains participants de la Marche pour la vie, le jeune pro-life originaire du Beaujolais a monté, en 2005, ce projet de Life parade qui se veut multiconfessionnel « pour faire la fête et se réjouir d’être ensemble autour des mêmes valeurs ».
Après sept ans dans une maison de disque, il est aujourd’hui conseiller en communication pour une agence qui travaille notamment pour l’Église. Une Église qui, selon lui, « est trop hiérarchique et a du mal à faire de la place aux jeunes ». Émile s’investit depuis peu dans le groupe de prière Even et prépare actuellement un concert pour les JMJ avec 350 choristes et 20 percussionnistes.
5. Benjamin (28 ans) et Thomas Pouzin (26ans), stars de la « pop louange »
U2, Goldman… et Jean-Paul II ! Les influences des frères Pouzin, alias Glorious, sont éclectiques. Benjamin (28 ans) et Thomas (26 ans) ont su se faire une place dans le paysage artistique français – plus de 100 000 albums vendus depuis 2002 –, cultivant un style « pop louange » inspiré des chanteurs évangéliques. Leur dernier né, Citoyens des cieux, flirte avec les meilleures ventes nationales depuis son lancement, fait rarissime pour des artistes chrétiens.
Pourtant, l’essentiel n’est pas là. Il y a deux ans, les frangins ont lancé le projet paroissial « Lyon Centre », veillées hebdomadaires basées sur la louange et la prédication. L’initiative a essaimé à Lorient, Albi et même Bologne, en Italie. Les jeunes y viennent se ressourcer et prendre part à des initiatives de solidarité.
« On ne fait pas carrière, assurent les deux frères. Nous sommes de simples baptisés qui veulent prendre leur place dans l’Église et faire vivre leur paroisse ! »
6. Romain Allain-Dupré (33 ans), le souci des plus pauvres
Le jour, il conseille les patrons du CAC 40. Le soir, il sillonne les gares parisiennes à la rencontre des personnes sans abri. Romain Allain-Dupré, trentenaire parisien, est le fondateur des Semeurs d’espérance. Depuis douze ans, cette association cherche à conjuguer compassion et évangélisation ou, selon ses mots, « le sacrement de l’Eucharistie avec le sacrement du pauvre ».
Rencontres amicales et atelier théâtre avec les exclus, veillées de prière et soirées d’adoration eucharistique, conférences : les semeurs rayonnent aujourd’hui auprès d’environ 500 personnes.
« Le pauvre, ce n’est pas seulement celui qui n’a rien, c’est d’abord celui qui a du mal à coller à l’image de Dieu qu’il porte en lui », affirme Romain Allain-Dupré, qui proposa les premières veillées à ses propres collègues. Une ardeur évangélisatrice nourrie, depuis sa conversion à 20 ans, auprès de catholiques d’autres pays au gré de ses voyages, des campus de Boston aux communautés catholiques clandestines de Chine.
7. Inès Minin (30 ans), porte-voix de la jeunesse
Enfant, elle entendait souvent : « Ça va être dur pour toi de réussir dans la vie. » Issue de Seine-Saint-Denis, Inès Minin est aujourd’hui syndicaliste à la CFDT après avoir œuvré l’an dernier à la mise en place du service civique auprès de Martin Hirsch, alors haut-commissaire à la jeunesse. « J’avais à cœur d’aider les jeunes à s’engager et à valoriser cette expérience, qui peut être déterminante. »
Comme elle l’a été pour elle : Inès Minin, dont la foi a mûri au sein de la Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne, a présidé avec éloquence ce mouvement pendant quatre ans. « Sans la JOC, je n’aurais pas eu le courage de reprendre des études dans une école de commerce en marge de mon travail », reconnaît la belle Antillaise de 30 ans.
Aujourd’hui, engagée aux Semaines sociales, Inès poursuit son action en faveur de la jeunesse. Et pour une Église qui soit « toujours plus proche des gens ». Avec les jeunes du « 9-3 », elle se prépare à vivre ses toutes premières JMJ, à Madrid.
8. Raphaël Cornu-Thénard (34 ans), l’évangélisation créative
Architecte de 34 ans, Raphaël Cornu-Thénard est un infatigable bâtisseur de projets. Depuis une quinzaine d’années, ce jeune père de famille ne cesse de promouvoir l’évangélisation dans l’Église de France. Verve sans faille et tempérament de meneur, c’est lui qui a fondé les Pèlerins de l’Espérance, en 1995, à Boulogne-Billancourt, puis le groupe de prière Abba, à Paris, en 2000, avec d’autres jeunes. On lui doit aussi le rassemblement Holywins en 2002, alternative chrétienne à Halloween.
Plaidant pour « une communion stimulante avec l’institution », proche des communautés nouvelles, de Mgr Dominique Rey, évêque de Fréjus-Toulon, Raphaël Cornu-Thénard a lancé, en 2006, Anuncio, mouvement d’« évangélisation directe »… jusque sur les plages ! « Notre but, c’est de mettre notre enthousiasme et nos compétences au service des diocèses et des paroisses. »
L’équipe centrale des JMJ a d’ailleurs sollicité Raphaël pour contribuer au dispositif madrilène.
9. Antoine Dulin (27 ans), scoutisme solidaire
Depuis ses premiers pas comme louveteau à 7 ans, Antoine Dulin a fait du chemin chez les Scouts et Guides de France. D’abord chargé des partenariats Nord-Sud à sa sortie de Sciences-Po, ce baroudeur voyage pendant un an en Asie, en Afrique et en Amérique du Sud pour le mouvement.
Aujourd’hui âgé de 27 ans, il dirige avec enthousiasme l’équipe chargée d’établir le projet pédagogique des 14-17 ans. L’été dernier, il fut à l’origine de CitéCap, un rassemblement de 10 000 scouts autour du développement durable et du thème « Habiter autrement la planète ».
Son mot d’ordre, pour les scouts, mais aussi au CCFD, pour lequel il a rédigé le médiatique rapport sur les « biens mal acquis », à l’origine d’une plainte contre trois chefs d’État africains, reste la défense de la « solidarité et la fraternité ». De l’Église, dont la doctrine sociale lui « correspond tout à fait », il attend qu’elle soit « tournée vers la société et sa diversité ».
10. Margot de Nicolay (26 ans), la saveur de Dieu
Margot, c’est l’histoire de deux passions : le vin et Dieu. La première remonte à ses 15 ans : elle rêve de se spécialiser dans l’œnologie, avant d’opter pour la finance. Mais à côté, elle enchaîne : rencontres de vignerons, découvertes des terroirs du monde entier, championnats de dégustation… La seconde passion est plus tardive : élevée dans la Sarthe catholique mais pas franchement pratiquante, c’est sur le chemin de Compostelle qu’elle « retourne vers Dieu ». De là naît un concept savoureux : les week-ends « spi and spi » (spirituel et spiritueux).
Depuis deux ans, cette bonne vivante de 26 ans en- traîne de jeunes professionnels dans les vignobles, accompagnés par un prêtre. Objectif : faire « goûter à la saveur de Dieu » ceux qui se sont éloignés de la foi : « Cela permet d’incarner Dieu dans une autre réalité.
De redécouvrir la contemplation : on prend le temps d’être dans les vignes, d’observer les paysages. C’est aussi l’écoute et le respect de la Création. Cela implique enfin d’aiguiser ses sens et, par là, de mieux se connaître. Sans oublier le côté festif et la convivialité ! »
(Décembre 2010, Julien DURIEZ, Céline HOYEAU et François-Xavier MAIGRE)
Voici un coup de projecteur – naturellement non exhaustif – sur dix jeunes, pour la plupart passés par les Journées Mondiales de la Jeunesse (JMJ), qui participent aujourd’hui au renouveau spirituel en France
Lors d'un concert du groupe Glorious,
le 4 avril 2010 au festival de Pâques de Chartres
(Photo Virginia CASTRO/CIRIC).
Ils ont entre 18 et 35 ans. Sont mariés ou célibataires. Étudiants ou déjà bien implantés dans la vie active. Ce qui les fédère ? Une extraordinaire créativité, un charisme personnel évident et une volonté farouche d’imprimer leur marque dans le monde qui les entoure… et dans l’Église. Car ces jeunes catholiques convaincus, marqués par le besoin de s’affirmer dans une société sécularisée, ont créé de nouvelles manières de vivre la foi. Parfaitement en phase avec la culture médiatique dans laquelle ils ont grandi, plutôt citadins, à l’image d’un catholicisme qui se recompose dans les grandes villes.
Que ce soit dans le champ social, en politique, ou dans la vie spirituelle : rien n’a changé sur le fond. Mais sur la forme, ils ont su innover. Au risque, parfois, de bousculer les structures établies. Proches des communautés nouvelles – mais pas toujours –, s’inscrivant d’instinct dans le sillage de Vatican II, ces jeunes n’ont pas attendu que l’institution vienne les chercher : ils vont au-devant des aspirations de leurs contemporains. Certains sont des fondateurs, d’autres redonnent une nouvelle jeunesse à des mouvements existants.
Ces jeunes « entrepreneurs » refusent les étiquettes. Ils rêvent d’une Église décomplexée, en prise avec le monde – réel et virtuel –, ouverte aux autres religions. Le creuset commun de cette génération : les JMJ, rendez-vous d’une jeunesse catholique mondialisée, proposé par Jean-Paul II. Tout en étant attachés à la figure du pape, ils cultivent une certaine distance à l’égard de l’institution, et ne sont pas à un paradoxe près.
On pourra leur objecter des imprudences de francs-tireurs, une liberté de ton qui ne s’embarrasse pas des protocoles, une certaine difficulté à s’inscrire dans la durée ou dans une dynamique collective. On leur reprochera de ne pas être représentatifs, ajouteront certains. Mais tous, à leur manière, ont su redonner le goût de l’Église à de nombreux jeunes.
1. Samuel Grzybowski (18 ans), nouveau visage de l’interreligieux
Il n’a que 18 ans, le visage encore juvénile et vient de passer son bac. Mais Samuel Grzybowski témoigne d’une maturité étonnante. Car ce Parisien enjoué, qui a « lu Vatican II à 17 ans » et aime à citer Christian de Chergé, a su très vite se faire un nom dans l’univers du dialogue interreligieux.
« Notre génération est confrontée à une diversité religieuse inédite. Nous sommes convaincus qu’il en va de la survie de l’humanité que d’accepter la voie de la rencontre », résume Samuel, créateur en 2008 de l’association « Coexister » avec ses amis juifs et musulmans.
Cet été, ils se rendront ensemble aux JMJ de Madrid. « Il ne s’agit pas de tolérance, mais de défendre une coexistence active, un dialogue capable de produire des actions concrètes », insiste-t-il, citant les opérations « don du sang » organisées par l’association.
Soutenus par la Conférence mondiale des religions pour la paix, Samuel et ses amis prévoient d’organiser un « voyage de la paix » en Terre sainte, en 2012.
2. Marie Payen (28 ans), 100% diocèse
À 28 ans, Marie Payen a renoncé à un emploi confortable chez un des plus grands éditeurs français pour prendre la responsabilité de la pastorale des jeunes du diocèse de Cambrai, où elle coordonne le dispositif des JMJ de Madrid. « Je suis très attachée à l’Église diocésaine. Pour moi, c’est la proximité, le seul lieu qui permet de vivre sa foi au quotidien », explique cette Lilloise d’origine, qui fut pendant deux ans permanente à Taizé, où elle pilota deux rencontres internationales.
Elle sera, par la suite, l’une des chevilles ouvrières du grand pèlerinage étudiant « Aux sources. Terre sainte 2009 », chargée d’assurer le lien avec les diocèses. Artiste à ses heures – elle réalise des vitraux pour les églises –, cette jeune femme pétillante n’a qu’une ambition : « Permettre aux jeunes du Nord de nouer des relations d’amitié dans le Christ, de vivre leur foi sans complexe et de se mettre au service des familles modestes d’un diocèse, qui malgré ses fragilités, ne manque pas de dynamisme. »
3. Koz (35 ans), l’avocat-blogueur du pape
Son univers de prédilection : les blogs, Facebook, Twitter. Koz est une référence sur Internet. C’est d’abord comme blogueur politique qu’il s’est fait connaître, avant de faire son « coming out catho » lors du voyage de Benoît XVI en France, en 2006.
Depuis, cet avocat d’affaires, qui « pour des raisons professionnelles » préfère garder l’anonymat, consacre ses plaidoyers aux chrétiens d’Irak, au préservatif et, défenseur d’un catholicisme décomplexé – « de contre-culture » –, il croise le fer sur Internet dès lors qu’on attaque le pape. « L’Église a besoin de voix non autorisées qui puissent la représenter sans l’engager officiellement », martèle-t-il.
L’an dernier, « l’Appel à la vérité » qu’il a lancé avec d’autres en pleine crise des affaires de pédophilie a recueilli 40 000 signatures. Koz participe à la plate-forme commune des « Sacristains » avec d’autres jeunes blogueurs catholiques. Dans la « vraie vie », ce trentenaire marié, père de trois enfants, est engagé dans sa paroisse.
4. Emile Duport (30 ans), militant pour la vie
Physique de rugbyman, mèche de rocker et grande gueule, Émile Duport, 30 ans, ne manque pas de charisme. Sur une scène de concert, avec son groupe « Elles et ils sonnent », ou en grand organisateur de la « Life parade », sa gouaille et ses convictions font de lui un rassembleur.
Agacé par des positions trop extrêmes de certains participants de la Marche pour la vie, le jeune pro-life originaire du Beaujolais a monté, en 2005, ce projet de Life parade qui se veut multiconfessionnel « pour faire la fête et se réjouir d’être ensemble autour des mêmes valeurs ».
Après sept ans dans une maison de disque, il est aujourd’hui conseiller en communication pour une agence qui travaille notamment pour l’Église. Une Église qui, selon lui, « est trop hiérarchique et a du mal à faire de la place aux jeunes ». Émile s’investit depuis peu dans le groupe de prière Even et prépare actuellement un concert pour les JMJ avec 350 choristes et 20 percussionnistes.
5. Benjamin (28 ans) et Thomas Pouzin (26ans), stars de la « pop louange »
U2, Goldman… et Jean-Paul II ! Les influences des frères Pouzin, alias Glorious, sont éclectiques. Benjamin (28 ans) et Thomas (26 ans) ont su se faire une place dans le paysage artistique français – plus de 100 000 albums vendus depuis 2002 –, cultivant un style « pop louange » inspiré des chanteurs évangéliques. Leur dernier né, Citoyens des cieux, flirte avec les meilleures ventes nationales depuis son lancement, fait rarissime pour des artistes chrétiens.
Pourtant, l’essentiel n’est pas là. Il y a deux ans, les frangins ont lancé le projet paroissial « Lyon Centre », veillées hebdomadaires basées sur la louange et la prédication. L’initiative a essaimé à Lorient, Albi et même Bologne, en Italie. Les jeunes y viennent se ressourcer et prendre part à des initiatives de solidarité.
« On ne fait pas carrière, assurent les deux frères. Nous sommes de simples baptisés qui veulent prendre leur place dans l’Église et faire vivre leur paroisse ! »
6. Romain Allain-Dupré (33 ans), le souci des plus pauvres
Le jour, il conseille les patrons du CAC 40. Le soir, il sillonne les gares parisiennes à la rencontre des personnes sans abri. Romain Allain-Dupré, trentenaire parisien, est le fondateur des Semeurs d’espérance. Depuis douze ans, cette association cherche à conjuguer compassion et évangélisation ou, selon ses mots, « le sacrement de l’Eucharistie avec le sacrement du pauvre ».
Rencontres amicales et atelier théâtre avec les exclus, veillées de prière et soirées d’adoration eucharistique, conférences : les semeurs rayonnent aujourd’hui auprès d’environ 500 personnes.
« Le pauvre, ce n’est pas seulement celui qui n’a rien, c’est d’abord celui qui a du mal à coller à l’image de Dieu qu’il porte en lui », affirme Romain Allain-Dupré, qui proposa les premières veillées à ses propres collègues. Une ardeur évangélisatrice nourrie, depuis sa conversion à 20 ans, auprès de catholiques d’autres pays au gré de ses voyages, des campus de Boston aux communautés catholiques clandestines de Chine.
7. Inès Minin (30 ans), porte-voix de la jeunesse
Enfant, elle entendait souvent : « Ça va être dur pour toi de réussir dans la vie. » Issue de Seine-Saint-Denis, Inès Minin est aujourd’hui syndicaliste à la CFDT après avoir œuvré l’an dernier à la mise en place du service civique auprès de Martin Hirsch, alors haut-commissaire à la jeunesse. « J’avais à cœur d’aider les jeunes à s’engager et à valoriser cette expérience, qui peut être déterminante. »
Comme elle l’a été pour elle : Inès Minin, dont la foi a mûri au sein de la Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne, a présidé avec éloquence ce mouvement pendant quatre ans. « Sans la JOC, je n’aurais pas eu le courage de reprendre des études dans une école de commerce en marge de mon travail », reconnaît la belle Antillaise de 30 ans.
Aujourd’hui, engagée aux Semaines sociales, Inès poursuit son action en faveur de la jeunesse. Et pour une Église qui soit « toujours plus proche des gens ». Avec les jeunes du « 9-3 », elle se prépare à vivre ses toutes premières JMJ, à Madrid.
8. Raphaël Cornu-Thénard (34 ans), l’évangélisation créative
Architecte de 34 ans, Raphaël Cornu-Thénard est un infatigable bâtisseur de projets. Depuis une quinzaine d’années, ce jeune père de famille ne cesse de promouvoir l’évangélisation dans l’Église de France. Verve sans faille et tempérament de meneur, c’est lui qui a fondé les Pèlerins de l’Espérance, en 1995, à Boulogne-Billancourt, puis le groupe de prière Abba, à Paris, en 2000, avec d’autres jeunes. On lui doit aussi le rassemblement Holywins en 2002, alternative chrétienne à Halloween.
Plaidant pour « une communion stimulante avec l’institution », proche des communautés nouvelles, de Mgr Dominique Rey, évêque de Fréjus-Toulon, Raphaël Cornu-Thénard a lancé, en 2006, Anuncio, mouvement d’« évangélisation directe »… jusque sur les plages ! « Notre but, c’est de mettre notre enthousiasme et nos compétences au service des diocèses et des paroisses. »
L’équipe centrale des JMJ a d’ailleurs sollicité Raphaël pour contribuer au dispositif madrilène.
9. Antoine Dulin (27 ans), scoutisme solidaire
Depuis ses premiers pas comme louveteau à 7 ans, Antoine Dulin a fait du chemin chez les Scouts et Guides de France. D’abord chargé des partenariats Nord-Sud à sa sortie de Sciences-Po, ce baroudeur voyage pendant un an en Asie, en Afrique et en Amérique du Sud pour le mouvement.
Aujourd’hui âgé de 27 ans, il dirige avec enthousiasme l’équipe chargée d’établir le projet pédagogique des 14-17 ans. L’été dernier, il fut à l’origine de CitéCap, un rassemblement de 10 000 scouts autour du développement durable et du thème « Habiter autrement la planète ».
Son mot d’ordre, pour les scouts, mais aussi au CCFD, pour lequel il a rédigé le médiatique rapport sur les « biens mal acquis », à l’origine d’une plainte contre trois chefs d’État africains, reste la défense de la « solidarité et la fraternité ». De l’Église, dont la doctrine sociale lui « correspond tout à fait », il attend qu’elle soit « tournée vers la société et sa diversité ».
10. Margot de Nicolay (26 ans), la saveur de Dieu
Margot, c’est l’histoire de deux passions : le vin et Dieu. La première remonte à ses 15 ans : elle rêve de se spécialiser dans l’œnologie, avant d’opter pour la finance. Mais à côté, elle enchaîne : rencontres de vignerons, découvertes des terroirs du monde entier, championnats de dégustation… La seconde passion est plus tardive : élevée dans la Sarthe catholique mais pas franchement pratiquante, c’est sur le chemin de Compostelle qu’elle « retourne vers Dieu ». De là naît un concept savoureux : les week-ends « spi and spi » (spirituel et spiritueux).
Depuis deux ans, cette bonne vivante de 26 ans en- traîne de jeunes professionnels dans les vignobles, accompagnés par un prêtre. Objectif : faire « goûter à la saveur de Dieu » ceux qui se sont éloignés de la foi : « Cela permet d’incarner Dieu dans une autre réalité.
De redécouvrir la contemplation : on prend le temps d’être dans les vignes, d’observer les paysages. C’est aussi l’écoute et le respect de la Création. Cela implique enfin d’aiguiser ses sens et, par là, de mieux se connaître. Sans oublier le côté festif et la convivialité ! »
(Décembre 2010, Julien DURIEZ, Céline HOYEAU et François-Xavier MAIGRE)
Sunday, March 02, 2008
America's Giving Challenge a Success
The Challenge is over. We received this letter on February 26, 2008:
"Dear Bernie,
Great news! Your organization has been awarded $1,000 through the America’s Giving Challenge, an exciting online initiative designed to make giving part of living.
Presented by Parade Magazine and the Case Foundation, with GlobalGiving as their donation partner, the Challenge called on participants to raise funds for and/or donate to the charities and causes they care about most.
The 50 nonprofits with the greatest number of total donations made to them through GlobalGiving were then eligible for an additional $1,000. And your organization is one of the top 50. Congratulations!
We believe America’s Giving Challenge has shown the true power of online philanthropy, and we’re excited to reward organizations doing interesting, inspiring work. You clearly have a lot of people who care deeply about your cause.
For more information about the Challenge, visit http://www.parade.com/givingchallenge.
And again, congratulations!
Yours in giving,
GlobalGiving, The Case Foundation, and Parade Magazine"
Thank you to all who made this Challenge a success, allowing to make a difference to the life of poor high school students.
"Dear Bernie,
Great news! Your organization has been awarded $1,000 through the America’s Giving Challenge, an exciting online initiative designed to make giving part of living.
Presented by Parade Magazine and the Case Foundation, with GlobalGiving as their donation partner, the Challenge called on participants to raise funds for and/or donate to the charities and causes they care about most.
The 50 nonprofits with the greatest number of total donations made to them through GlobalGiving were then eligible for an additional $1,000. And your organization is one of the top 50. Congratulations!
We believe America’s Giving Challenge has shown the true power of online philanthropy, and we’re excited to reward organizations doing interesting, inspiring work. You clearly have a lot of people who care deeply about your cause.
For more information about the Challenge, visit http://www.parade.com/givingchallenge.
And again, congratulations!
Yours in giving,
GlobalGiving, The Case Foundation, and Parade Magazine"
Thank you to all who made this Challenge a success, allowing to make a difference to the life of poor high school students.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
America's Giving Challenge: Till January 31, 2008
Bicycles for Poor Students in India
Help make a difference. Bernie is taking the America's Giving Challenge. Give now and help this charity get $50,000!
This is why this charity is important to Bernie:
Providing 300 bicycles and shoes to 300 students --150 boys and 150 girls--to help them go to school in poor coastal areas of Kerala, India. By giving one bike ($75) to anyone of these poor but joyful boys and girls you make a big difference in their life for the better. You will feel great about yourself. This project on GlobalGiving was designed and is implemented by selfless volunteers. If you bring success we could double the number of beneficiaries!
Support Bernie's challenge now!
Here's How You Can Help:
$10 - Buying a pair of shoes for 2 poor school boys or girls
$75 - Buying a bicycle for one poor student to go to school in remote village, Kerala (300 bikes needed)
$990 - Transporting and distributing 300 bicycles to 300 student boys/girls living in poor coastal areas
$ Other amount
Bicycles for Poor Students in IndiaHelp make a difference. Bernie is taking the America's Giving Challenge. Give now and help this charity get $50,000!
This is why this charity is important to Bernie:
Providing 300 bicycles and shoes to 300 students --150 boys and 150 girls--to help them go to school in poor coastal areas of Kerala, India. By giving one bike ($75) to anyone of these poor but joyful boys and girls you make a big difference in their life for the better. You will feel great about yourself. This project on GlobalGiving was designed and is implemented by selfless volunteers. If you bring success we could double the number of beneficiaries!
Support Bernie's challenge now!
Here's How You Can Help:
$10 - Buying a pair of shoes for 2 poor school boys or girls
$75 - Buying a bicycle for one poor student to go to school in remote village, Kerala (300 bikes needed)
$990 - Transporting and distributing 300 bicycles to 300 student boys/girls living in poor coastal areas
$ Other amount
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Bicycles for Poor Students in India
The students of the poor coastal areas of Azheekal need go to school at St George High School in the village of Thankey, in Alleppy district, Kerala, the only nearby school available to them. The area is steeped in poverty and at the mercy of repeated sea erosion including last tsunami disaster. School is too far from Azheekal to walk each day barefoot with heavy bags of books, making school attendance difficult to the point of jeopardizing students’ future. Bicycles --at US$75 each-- will have a strong impact by helping poor children go to school regularly. The 300 beneficiary students (150 boys and 150 girls) will own their bike after completing school.
"Please gi'me a bike to go school!"
Bicycles for Poor Students in India
Providing 300 bicycles and shoes to 300 students --150 boys and 150 girls--to help them go to school in poor coastal areas of Kerala, India.
Theme: Education
Location: India Need: $25,490
Project Message
The program for the students, irrespective of caste and creed, will help raise the educational standard of the people as well as the income of the families.
- R. Thomas Parathara, General Manager of beneficiary school
Project Contact: Claudine President
Mary Mother of Peace-Medjugorje Charity, Inc
8617 Irvington Avenue
Bethesda, Maryland 20817-3603
United States
13015305416
Project impact: By helping 300 poor students (50% boys; 50% girls) finish high school and own a bicycle after graduation, the project will provide access to basic education to all the poor students in the selected area and village.
New Orleans One year on...
From The Economist, August 24th 2006:
With heartbreaking slowness, America's capital of good times is starting to revive
Reuters
The city of New Orleans is famous for putting a blithe face on things.
So perhaps it did not seem odd to the newly re-elected mayor, Ray Nagin, to suggest last month that the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina would be marked by a comedy show, a party at the Masquerade bar and a fireworks display.
It will not happen. For the fireworks, had they come, would have illuminated a streetscape that still looks largely as it did in November, when the last of the water was pumped out. The hurricane flooded three-quarters of the city, killed more than 1,500 people and scattered many of the rest to the four winds. To those there now, Mayor Nagin's proposal was a bad joke.
Katrina may have made landfall a year ago, but nearly every story in the Times-Picayune still revolves around the storm. A recent front-page feature on the new quarterback for the Saints, the city's football team, drew one reader to complain about the paper's lack of gravitas. In response, another wrote that it was high time to notice something other than misery.
But it is hard. Katrina's mark is everywhere. It still affects the way the city runs: the patchy mail deliveries, the frequent power cuts, low or non-existent water-pressure. In apparently tidy streets it shows in unkempt yards and a brown line on house walls. Most flooded buildings have been gutted, their interiors stripped to the frame. But others, from which the owners simply fled and never came back, are now foul nests of mould in which squats, sometimes, a non-working refrigerator full of year-old food. The city council has passed a law requiring anyone who owns a house in New Orleans to clean up by August 29th, the storm's anniversary, or have the property seized. There is no sign the politicians mean what they say.
People at least are coming back. More than a third of the owners of flooded homes have taken out some sort of building permit from City Hall, signaling that they intend to live in the city again. (In one state survey of 2,500 Katrina evacuees, 57% said that they were “somewhat” or “very” likely to return home eventually.) Many of these permits seem to be simply “placeholders”, pre-emptively obtained in case the city or the state starts to toughen up the building rules. But plenty of the permit-seekers are also starting to rebuild.
In upper-middle-class Lakeview small, obsolete homes are being cleared away. Brand-new and larger structures are often replacing them. Pontchartrain Park, the first subdivision built for upwardly mobile blacks in the days of segregation, is packed with temporary trailers as residents patch up their modest ranch houses. Farther from the centre of town, some of the smarter parts of the vast, suburbanized section of the city east of the Industrial Canal have also bounced back.
Generally, those districts that have recovered have done so in spite of government. Public assistance has been slow. Wealthier sections have returned more quickly, mostly because homeowners were more likely to be fully insured and had other resources to tap even if they weren't. Mixed-income sections next to the high-and-dry part of town—“the isle of denial”, as locals call it, most of it along the Mississippi River—have shown signs of life, both because they suffered lighter flooding and because they are next to thriving areas. Neighborhood loyalty has also helped. Broadmoor, a mixed black-and-white district in the low part of the old city's bowl, which took in about eight feet of water, organized impressively when officials said that it might be converted to parkland.
The still-low Lower Ninth
In the shattered Lower Ninth Ward, which shocked the world when its poor black residents were apparently abandoned by the authorities, some progress is apparent. Near the spot where the Industrial Canal first broke, most of the houses that were swept off their foundations and into the street have been cleared. Farther from the break some modest rebuilding has begun, particularly in the historic Holy Cross area along the riverfront.
Early on there were conflicting signals about the future of the Lower Ninth. Conspiracy theories abounded, among them the idea that the poor were being cleared out to make way for high-rent condominiums. They were fuelled by a tendency among officials to treat the Lower Ninth as a special case. (People there, for example, were the last to be allowed to return to their homes.) Talk persists of a plan to cure New Orleans's persistent poverty by keeping out the poor; and, in general, the poor have found it much harder to return. For those who were private renters, the difficulty stems mainly from foot-dragging by landlords trying to decide whether to rebuild. The city's infamous housing projects, meanwhile, have been mostly shuttered since the storm.
Only about one in five families living in public housing has been able to return, although activists complain that many buildings were not much damaged. Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (who has made no secret of his preference for mixed-income developments), announced in June that the government would demolish four of the city's ten complexes, but promised to reopen another 1,000 units of public housing by the summer's end. It is still not clear how many projects will be replaced.
The poorer sections of town are mostly waiting for the dispersal of $7.5 billion in federal aid to homeowners who did not have enough insurance either to repair or rebuild. The first of the grants, which are capped at $150,000, should be handed out any day. Roughly 100,000 people have applied for them. But Congress took nearly ten months to appropriate the money; and the private company hired to hand it out by the state, which is in charge, says it may take more than seven months to process each applicant. Some homeowners, therefore, will not be able to begin repairs until more than a year and a half after the storm. And with the amount to be done in New Orleans, and contractors trying to juggle as many clients as possible, rebuilding may well be agonizingly slow.
Brighter, but chaotic
This points to one silver lining after the storm. There are plenty of jobs in New Orleans these days. As well as the massive tasks of cleaning and rebuilding, the area's largest employer, the Ochsner Clinic Foundation, is open and operating, as are the public and private colleges and many of the hotels. (Some 71% of the 38,000 hotel rooms the city offered before Katrina are now back in service.) In the central business district, office and retail space is being snapped up fast. But it is hard to get workers because there is nowhere really to live. Many service industries are crowded with customers and desperate for labor. Burger King has offered new employees “signing bonuses” of up to $6,000, a tactic that has been swiftly copied by competitors.
On August 9th Moody's confirmed that while the city's rating was still below investment grade, there were “definitely signs of improvement”. Tourism in particular, the city's economic backbone before the storm, was coming back. Most comforting, and surprising, city revenues had not decreased as much as feared. The take from the sales tax is about 70% of the year-to-date figure for previous years. And property assessed valuations, which had been expected to fall by half, have dropped by only a quarter.
But the city is much smaller. Dispassionate estimates of its current population range from about 200,000 to 235,000. Before the storm around 455,000 people lived there. The trend was already downwards; in 1960, the city's peak, the figure was 630,000. Most demographers expect continued growth as the federal aid comes in and the planned residential projects get going, but it will be slow, and they see a plateau in the near future. The Rand Corporation, for example, estimates that the city will reach 272,000, or about 60% of its pre-storm population, in two years' time.
Before the storm, the city's three great problems were crime, corruption and poor schools. The new, shrunken metropolis may not show much improvement. The school system is in a state of flux that began before Katrina and is now exacerbated by a delay in the opening of parish (county) schools, but many hope that its new model, dominated by independent “charter” schools, may be an improvement. New Orleans's sleazy political culture, however, was not washed away by the storm, and crime has been increasing after a post-storm lull. In recent weeks 300 National Guardsmen have been deployed after a spate of gangland-style executions. It is hard to be optimistic about a city that needs Humvees to keep order.
And order, or proper planning, is perhaps what the city needs most. Early on, experts warned of the “jack-o'-lantern effect” that could result from a patchy recovery. Some recommended restricting building, or at least public investment, to the areas with the best chance of coming back.
In the end, however, Mr Nagin declared his support for “private property rights” and declined to restrict rebuilding in any way. The thorough planning process he originally wanted never got off the ground because of lack of federal funding. Without such a plan, some neighborhoods drew up their own, while the city council had a go in districts that could not afford professional planners.
Eventually, the state and the private Rockefeller Foundation stepped in with help. Thanks to them, “unified” planning has begun, and the latest round of it should be finished by the end of the year. But some decisions should surely have been made much sooner: where schools should be rebuilt, which sections of the sewer system should be fixed, where new parks might be put, and what sort of city should rise from the flotsam of the old.
Living in New Orleans before Katrina was an adventure. It has now become an adventure that many might rather skip.
Posted by Bernie
MARY MOTHER OF PEACE-MEDJUGORJE CHARITY, Inc.
8617 Irvington Avenue, Bethesda, MD20817-3603, USA; Tel 1 301 530 5416 ;
E-mail: mmpcharity@gmail.com ; Web: www.mmpcharity.org
REBUILDING CHILDREN’S LIVES AFTER KATRINA
The tragedy of hurricane Katrina is bringing the best in America through helping victim families of all faiths and races rebuild their lives, especially children. This will be a determinant factor in strengthening our communities through solidarity and generosity and will unite us instead of dividing us. Protecting children, easing their access to education, promoting family values will also prepare us for a better America.
Project Objective
The objective of the Project, with main focus on Louisiana, is to develop a recovery program that will help 100 children and their suffering families rebuild their lives with the support of corporate sponsors, and through a God-parenthood program (go to www.mmpcharity.org and click blue link on Katrina on top of page). Volunteers, who want to be part of the team for this initiative, understand their actions will be, with God's help, for the good of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. They will accept to donate time and talents in conformity with MMP-MC mission statement and with the law.
Program
The project is a two-year development program (Dec 2005-Dec 2007) and will be managed professionally during a three year implementation/disbursement period (till Dec 2008, each selected child being helped during two full years). MMP-MC assistance money will go directly to well-identified victim families to help their children in need for an agreed purpose (school tuition, clothing, food, clean water, health and dental care, other needs) and/or to pay bills for non-donated goods/services that will benefit victim families (utilities, home repairs, other basic needs).
Organizational Capacity
MMP-MC is a small and humble non-profit NGO, and the project will complement in a useful way what the big charities do or fail to do. Organizational capacity is therefore at small-scale, but action-and results-oriented. The NGO management team consists of a Board of seven directors, an advisory Board including VIPs, and a network of volunteers of all ages. Donors are partners. We work in full transparency and we are beneficiary-oriented. We are known for our strong financial discipline, low overhead and we believe our donors are entitled to know where each dollar they give is spent.
Implementation
Project implementation (Dec 2005-Dec 2008) will be supervised by a volunteer who is a ret. World Bank financial management official and development programs manager (US Citizen). When useful, we are open to partnerships with other reliable organizations while keeping control on the use of our funds. For the God-parenthood program, volunteers will help identify beneficiaries and family, community and corporate sponsors, and establish a dialogue with local authorities in Louisiana coordinating recovery operations. The God-parenthood program protects the children and gives the Godparents the right/ obligation to influence the intellectual, social, cultural growth and development of the Godchild in harmony with the sponsored family. The child is to be raised in a spirit of peace, justice and mutual respect. The Godparents promise not to impose their religious belief if it is against the beliefs of the parents/ guardian. Adhoc material help will cover specific basic needs of victim families to help them rebuild their lives and the lives of their kids. Goods, services, psychological services, school and spiritual counseling will be provided as needed within budget limits.
Budget
The two-year program foresees to help a target of 100 children in need on the basis of $1,200 per child per year during 2 years each child through direct assistance and/or by making operational God-parenthood agreements (model contract with copyright MMP-MC is available) at same dollar amount of support per child sponsored. In view of the gradual phasing-in of the sponsoring agreements, budget would be implemented in 3 years as follows for a total project cost of US$240,000, plus 10% admin expenses:
Program Years 2006 2007 2008 Total
Number of Children 75 25 -- 100
2 years of help
per child (in 000’$) 90 120 30 240
Project Justification
Fellow citizens of various ethnic and religious backgrounds, desperate for material and emotional support, are in need of healing, physically, mentally and spiritually. The Project will cover basic needs so that victim families (100 children) of Hurricane Katrina are healed and able to work again and making sure that children are taken care of and can go back to school.
Outputs
Anticipated accomplishments/ outputs --and positive long-term impact-- will be the result of prompt action/funding now: when a safe environment is re-created with basic needs, proper housing, clean water, healing, people can work again and children safely go back to school, key for the future.
BD/HS October 31, 2005
Our hearts are reaching out now to the suffering survivors of this natural disaster and human tragedy down South. Time is for all Americans to show solidarity and to set aside all their diverging views on the situation, past mistakes, initial slow response because of the ultra catastrophic and unimaginable consequences of an event hard to predict in all its aspects. We are amazed by the gigantic response of the country, and full of admiration for all the rescue workers and volunteers who give their heart out round the clock to save lives of all races and faiths. National and international solidarity reminds us the trying and painful time of the man-made tragedy of Sept 11 up North. Yes, it is different, as the wrath this time down South is coming from Mother Nature, not from criminal evildoers.
What is important now, is not to ask why this happened or what could have been done to avoid it, but to ask ourselves how to help including at the individual/local community level, even at small scale. With time, talents, money and prayers, there are many ways you can help families who survived the disaster in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama so that people are fed, sheltered, healed and able to work again, and that children can go back to school. Our non-profit, Mary Mother of Peace-Medjugorje Charity will launch a God-parenthood program that will contribute to rebuilding the life of suffering families by sponsoring children. A model contract is available. Volunteers are needed to help identify beneficiaries and family, community and corporate sponsors. With those who want to help, our common goal will be to complement on a case by case basis the major response of the Government and large humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, The Salvation Army, "George and Bill" Katrina Relief Fund, US Freedom Corps and others.
Whatever the Charity you wish to support to come to the rescue of our fellow citizens, you can also volunteer time to organize a fund raising event to the benefit of the victims, talk to your employers for matching grants, and ask your Church or school to have a special collection made. Southerners need our compassion to get back on their feet, regain dignity, and put hope, faith and love in the first place in their life. The important thing is not how much you accomplish, but how much love you put in your deeds every day. What do you suggest? Thank you for responding. Bernie.
There is a great need now to care for our disabled service people who have sacrificed much in an effort to defend freedom in the world. Physical, mental and spiritual healing can take place in various ways. Medical experience has shown that physical recovery can be speeded and enhanced if one’s mind and spirit are actively engaged in meaningful projects. Medicine has also learned that helping others in constructive ways is a most effective way to attain personal satisfaction, restore confidence, and make oneself again feel needed and useful.
I believe that those who have suffered the trauma of warfare, like our service personnel, can help restore their health and well-being by aiding other victims of conflict. Especially deserving of help are children whose families have been scarred and destroyed by war or other tragedies.
Your views are sought on how to approach and listen to our wounded veterans to connect them directly with war orphans overseas and/or US children who lost a father or mother. The aim is to mutually rebuild lives, those of American service people and of young victims. Specific program activities under preparation could include material assistance to overseas orphanages, correspondence and visits, and educational support to individual orphans abroad or at home. Does this make sense? Or better said, how can this be done in cooperation with military hospitals to make it a reality in practical terms? Thank you for responding. Bernie
"Please gi'me a bike to go school!"
Providing 300 bicycles and shoes to 300 students --150 boys and 150 girls--to help them go to school in poor coastal areas of Kerala, India.
Theme: Education
Location: India Need: $25,490
Project Message
The program for the students, irrespective of caste and creed, will help raise the educational standard of the people as well as the income of the families.
- R. Thomas Parathara, General Manager of beneficiary school
Project Contact: Claudine President
Mary Mother of Peace-Medjugorje Charity, Inc
8617 Irvington Avenue
Bethesda, Maryland 20817-3603
United States
13015305416
Project impact: By helping 300 poor students (50% boys; 50% girls) finish high school and own a bicycle after graduation, the project will provide access to basic education to all the poor students in the selected area and village.
Labels: bikes
Thursday, August 24, 2006
New Orleans: Recovering with Heartbreaking Slowness
New Orleans One year on...
From The Economist, August 24th 2006:
With heartbreaking slowness, America's capital of good times is starting to revive
Reuters
The city of New Orleans is famous for putting a blithe face on things.
So perhaps it did not seem odd to the newly re-elected mayor, Ray Nagin, to suggest last month that the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina would be marked by a comedy show, a party at the Masquerade bar and a fireworks display.
It will not happen. For the fireworks, had they come, would have illuminated a streetscape that still looks largely as it did in November, when the last of the water was pumped out. The hurricane flooded three-quarters of the city, killed more than 1,500 people and scattered many of the rest to the four winds. To those there now, Mayor Nagin's proposal was a bad joke.
Katrina may have made landfall a year ago, but nearly every story in the Times-Picayune still revolves around the storm. A recent front-page feature on the new quarterback for the Saints, the city's football team, drew one reader to complain about the paper's lack of gravitas. In response, another wrote that it was high time to notice something other than misery.
But it is hard. Katrina's mark is everywhere. It still affects the way the city runs: the patchy mail deliveries, the frequent power cuts, low or non-existent water-pressure. In apparently tidy streets it shows in unkempt yards and a brown line on house walls. Most flooded buildings have been gutted, their interiors stripped to the frame. But others, from which the owners simply fled and never came back, are now foul nests of mould in which squats, sometimes, a non-working refrigerator full of year-old food. The city council has passed a law requiring anyone who owns a house in New Orleans to clean up by August 29th, the storm's anniversary, or have the property seized. There is no sign the politicians mean what they say.
People at least are coming back. More than a third of the owners of flooded homes have taken out some sort of building permit from City Hall, signaling that they intend to live in the city again. (In one state survey of 2,500 Katrina evacuees, 57% said that they were “somewhat” or “very” likely to return home eventually.) Many of these permits seem to be simply “placeholders”, pre-emptively obtained in case the city or the state starts to toughen up the building rules. But plenty of the permit-seekers are also starting to rebuild.
In upper-middle-class Lakeview small, obsolete homes are being cleared away. Brand-new and larger structures are often replacing them. Pontchartrain Park, the first subdivision built for upwardly mobile blacks in the days of segregation, is packed with temporary trailers as residents patch up their modest ranch houses. Farther from the centre of town, some of the smarter parts of the vast, suburbanized section of the city east of the Industrial Canal have also bounced back.
Generally, those districts that have recovered have done so in spite of government. Public assistance has been slow. Wealthier sections have returned more quickly, mostly because homeowners were more likely to be fully insured and had other resources to tap even if they weren't. Mixed-income sections next to the high-and-dry part of town—“the isle of denial”, as locals call it, most of it along the Mississippi River—have shown signs of life, both because they suffered lighter flooding and because they are next to thriving areas. Neighborhood loyalty has also helped. Broadmoor, a mixed black-and-white district in the low part of the old city's bowl, which took in about eight feet of water, organized impressively when officials said that it might be converted to parkland.
The still-low Lower Ninth
In the shattered Lower Ninth Ward, which shocked the world when its poor black residents were apparently abandoned by the authorities, some progress is apparent. Near the spot where the Industrial Canal first broke, most of the houses that were swept off their foundations and into the street have been cleared. Farther from the break some modest rebuilding has begun, particularly in the historic Holy Cross area along the riverfront.
Early on there were conflicting signals about the future of the Lower Ninth. Conspiracy theories abounded, among them the idea that the poor were being cleared out to make way for high-rent condominiums. They were fuelled by a tendency among officials to treat the Lower Ninth as a special case. (People there, for example, were the last to be allowed to return to their homes.) Talk persists of a plan to cure New Orleans's persistent poverty by keeping out the poor; and, in general, the poor have found it much harder to return. For those who were private renters, the difficulty stems mainly from foot-dragging by landlords trying to decide whether to rebuild. The city's infamous housing projects, meanwhile, have been mostly shuttered since the storm.
Only about one in five families living in public housing has been able to return, although activists complain that many buildings were not much damaged. Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (who has made no secret of his preference for mixed-income developments), announced in June that the government would demolish four of the city's ten complexes, but promised to reopen another 1,000 units of public housing by the summer's end. It is still not clear how many projects will be replaced.
The poorer sections of town are mostly waiting for the dispersal of $7.5 billion in federal aid to homeowners who did not have enough insurance either to repair or rebuild. The first of the grants, which are capped at $150,000, should be handed out any day. Roughly 100,000 people have applied for them. But Congress took nearly ten months to appropriate the money; and the private company hired to hand it out by the state, which is in charge, says it may take more than seven months to process each applicant. Some homeowners, therefore, will not be able to begin repairs until more than a year and a half after the storm. And with the amount to be done in New Orleans, and contractors trying to juggle as many clients as possible, rebuilding may well be agonizingly slow.
Brighter, but chaotic
This points to one silver lining after the storm. There are plenty of jobs in New Orleans these days. As well as the massive tasks of cleaning and rebuilding, the area's largest employer, the Ochsner Clinic Foundation, is open and operating, as are the public and private colleges and many of the hotels. (Some 71% of the 38,000 hotel rooms the city offered before Katrina are now back in service.) In the central business district, office and retail space is being snapped up fast. But it is hard to get workers because there is nowhere really to live. Many service industries are crowded with customers and desperate for labor. Burger King has offered new employees “signing bonuses” of up to $6,000, a tactic that has been swiftly copied by competitors.
On August 9th Moody's confirmed that while the city's rating was still below investment grade, there were “definitely signs of improvement”. Tourism in particular, the city's economic backbone before the storm, was coming back. Most comforting, and surprising, city revenues had not decreased as much as feared. The take from the sales tax is about 70% of the year-to-date figure for previous years. And property assessed valuations, which had been expected to fall by half, have dropped by only a quarter.
But the city is much smaller. Dispassionate estimates of its current population range from about 200,000 to 235,000. Before the storm around 455,000 people lived there. The trend was already downwards; in 1960, the city's peak, the figure was 630,000. Most demographers expect continued growth as the federal aid comes in and the planned residential projects get going, but it will be slow, and they see a plateau in the near future. The Rand Corporation, for example, estimates that the city will reach 272,000, or about 60% of its pre-storm population, in two years' time.
Before the storm, the city's three great problems were crime, corruption and poor schools. The new, shrunken metropolis may not show much improvement. The school system is in a state of flux that began before Katrina and is now exacerbated by a delay in the opening of parish (county) schools, but many hope that its new model, dominated by independent “charter” schools, may be an improvement. New Orleans's sleazy political culture, however, was not washed away by the storm, and crime has been increasing after a post-storm lull. In recent weeks 300 National Guardsmen have been deployed after a spate of gangland-style executions. It is hard to be optimistic about a city that needs Humvees to keep order.
And order, or proper planning, is perhaps what the city needs most. Early on, experts warned of the “jack-o'-lantern effect” that could result from a patchy recovery. Some recommended restricting building, or at least public investment, to the areas with the best chance of coming back.
In the end, however, Mr Nagin declared his support for “private property rights” and declined to restrict rebuilding in any way. The thorough planning process he originally wanted never got off the ground because of lack of federal funding. Without such a plan, some neighborhoods drew up their own, while the city council had a go in districts that could not afford professional planners.
Eventually, the state and the private Rockefeller Foundation stepped in with help. Thanks to them, “unified” planning has begun, and the latest round of it should be finished by the end of the year. But some decisions should surely have been made much sooner: where schools should be rebuilt, which sections of the sewer system should be fixed, where new parks might be put, and what sort of city should rise from the flotsam of the old.
Living in New Orleans before Katrina was an adventure. It has now become an adventure that many might rather skip.
Posted by Bernie
Monday, October 31, 2005
Help Katrina Survivors Rebuild Their Lives: Sponsor a Family or a Child
MARY MOTHER OF PEACE-MEDJUGORJE CHARITY, Inc.
8617 Irvington Avenue, Bethesda, MD20817-3603, USA; Tel 1 301 530 5416 ;
E-mail: mmpcharity@gmail.com ; Web: www.mmpcharity.org
REBUILDING CHILDREN’S LIVES AFTER KATRINA
The tragedy of hurricane Katrina is bringing the best in America through helping victim families of all faiths and races rebuild their lives, especially children. This will be a determinant factor in strengthening our communities through solidarity and generosity and will unite us instead of dividing us. Protecting children, easing their access to education, promoting family values will also prepare us for a better America.
Project Objective
The objective of the Project, with main focus on Louisiana, is to develop a recovery program that will help 100 children and their suffering families rebuild their lives with the support of corporate sponsors, and through a God-parenthood program (go to www.mmpcharity.org and click blue link on Katrina on top of page). Volunteers, who want to be part of the team for this initiative, understand their actions will be, with God's help, for the good of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. They will accept to donate time and talents in conformity with MMP-MC mission statement and with the law.
Program
The project is a two-year development program (Dec 2005-Dec 2007) and will be managed professionally during a three year implementation/disbursement period (till Dec 2008, each selected child being helped during two full years). MMP-MC assistance money will go directly to well-identified victim families to help their children in need for an agreed purpose (school tuition, clothing, food, clean water, health and dental care, other needs) and/or to pay bills for non-donated goods/services that will benefit victim families (utilities, home repairs, other basic needs).
Organizational Capacity
MMP-MC is a small and humble non-profit NGO, and the project will complement in a useful way what the big charities do or fail to do. Organizational capacity is therefore at small-scale, but action-and results-oriented. The NGO management team consists of a Board of seven directors, an advisory Board including VIPs, and a network of volunteers of all ages. Donors are partners. We work in full transparency and we are beneficiary-oriented. We are known for our strong financial discipline, low overhead and we believe our donors are entitled to know where each dollar they give is spent.
Implementation
Project implementation (Dec 2005-Dec 2008) will be supervised by a volunteer who is a ret. World Bank financial management official and development programs manager (US Citizen). When useful, we are open to partnerships with other reliable organizations while keeping control on the use of our funds. For the God-parenthood program, volunteers will help identify beneficiaries and family, community and corporate sponsors, and establish a dialogue with local authorities in Louisiana coordinating recovery operations. The God-parenthood program protects the children and gives the Godparents the right/ obligation to influence the intellectual, social, cultural growth and development of the Godchild in harmony with the sponsored family. The child is to be raised in a spirit of peace, justice and mutual respect. The Godparents promise not to impose their religious belief if it is against the beliefs of the parents/ guardian. Adhoc material help will cover specific basic needs of victim families to help them rebuild their lives and the lives of their kids. Goods, services, psychological services, school and spiritual counseling will be provided as needed within budget limits.
Budget
The two-year program foresees to help a target of 100 children in need on the basis of $1,200 per child per year during 2 years each child through direct assistance and/or by making operational God-parenthood agreements (model contract with copyright MMP-MC is available) at same dollar amount of support per child sponsored. In view of the gradual phasing-in of the sponsoring agreements, budget would be implemented in 3 years as follows for a total project cost of US$240,000, plus 10% admin expenses:
Program Years 2006 2007 2008 Total
Number of Children 75 25 -- 100
2 years of help
per child (in 000’$) 90 120 30 240
Project Justification
Fellow citizens of various ethnic and religious backgrounds, desperate for material and emotional support, are in need of healing, physically, mentally and spiritually. The Project will cover basic needs so that victim families (100 children) of Hurricane Katrina are healed and able to work again and making sure that children are taken care of and can go back to school.
Outputs
Anticipated accomplishments/ outputs --and positive long-term impact-- will be the result of prompt action/funding now: when a safe environment is re-created with basic needs, proper housing, clean water, healing, people can work again and children safely go back to school, key for the future.
BD/HS October 31, 2005
Thursday, September 15, 2005
To the People of New Orleans and Suffering Southerners
Wherever you are now, South or North, here are a few words for you from a child who died at age 24 and became St-Therese, nicknamed "Little Flower":
"My life is but an instant, an hour that passes by; a single day that slips my grasp and quickly slides away. O well, you know, my dearest God, to love you, I only have today."Good people of New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, keep on being brave and don't loose hope. Bernie.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
How to Help Survivors of Katrina's Disaster?
Our hearts are reaching out now to the suffering survivors of this natural disaster and human tragedy down South. Time is for all Americans to show solidarity and to set aside all their diverging views on the situation, past mistakes, initial slow response because of the ultra catastrophic and unimaginable consequences of an event hard to predict in all its aspects. We are amazed by the gigantic response of the country, and full of admiration for all the rescue workers and volunteers who give their heart out round the clock to save lives of all races and faiths. National and international solidarity reminds us the trying and painful time of the man-made tragedy of Sept 11 up North. Yes, it is different, as the wrath this time down South is coming from Mother Nature, not from criminal evildoers.
What is important now, is not to ask why this happened or what could have been done to avoid it, but to ask ourselves how to help including at the individual/local community level, even at small scale. With time, talents, money and prayers, there are many ways you can help families who survived the disaster in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama so that people are fed, sheltered, healed and able to work again, and that children can go back to school. Our non-profit, Mary Mother of Peace-Medjugorje Charity will launch a God-parenthood program that will contribute to rebuilding the life of suffering families by sponsoring children. A model contract is available. Volunteers are needed to help identify beneficiaries and family, community and corporate sponsors. With those who want to help, our common goal will be to complement on a case by case basis the major response of the Government and large humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, The Salvation Army, "George and Bill" Katrina Relief Fund, US Freedom Corps and others.
Whatever the Charity you wish to support to come to the rescue of our fellow citizens, you can also volunteer time to organize a fund raising event to the benefit of the victims, talk to your employers for matching grants, and ask your Church or school to have a special collection made. Southerners need our compassion to get back on their feet, regain dignity, and put hope, faith and love in the first place in their life. The important thing is not how much you accomplish, but how much love you put in your deeds every day. What do you suggest? Thank you for responding. Bernie.
Nurture Peace
Nurture peace like a flower which is in need of water, tenderness and light.
Do you agree? How?
Do you agree? How?
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Don’t Forget the Remedy
Amidst the historic devastation in New Orleans and its surrounding regions, we are rightfully shocked with the gravity of the suffering presently being experienced by the victims of Katrina, particularly the children and babies without food and water, the elderly and infirm without medication and care, and all the rest who are deprived from basic necessities for human existence.
We pray and plea that Heaven will assist them. We pray that, rather than giving in to any possible temptation to shake their fists in anger at God for this tragedy, they will open their hearts to Abba Father with new or renewed faith and hope in the God whose mercy is infinite. The Heart of God, the Father of all mankind, will pour forth extraordinary spiritual graces to his children/refugees at this perilous hour, graces that can last for all eternity, regardless of the limitations of human modes of material assistance. The Father has not forsaken them. He has never been closer to them.
For some, it is intolerable at a time of such human suffering to speak of any possible connection between the devastation of Katrina and the specific moral evils for which New Orleans and its surrounding regions of Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi were nationally infamous: voodoo centers and haunted graveyard tours, homosexual bars and transvestite clubs, striptease and porno houses, gambling casinos and prostitution establishments, and the like. In fact, the hurricane has prevented the annual Big Easy festival previously scheduled to take place this Labor Day weekend entitled, "Southern Decadence," which is advertised as being "gayer than Mardi Gras" and a unique exhibition of "naked flesh."
Wouldn’t such a connection be judgmental and lacking in compassion for the victims at such a time of tragedy? Yet the reason why many Christians (and also non-Christians) are examining the possible connection between concentrated sin in a particular geographic area like New Orleans and God at least permitting that area to experience the brunt of a natural calamity is precisely for the purpose of mercy: to encourage the prevention of the potential repetition, or even escalation, of the human misery as tragic as that experienced by our beloved brothers and sisters in the southern Gulf coast right now.
If we do miss what is intended as a providential message about the immediate need for conversion, repentance, and a return to God beyond any securities that money and the material of this life can offer, then we set the stage for a repeat of this providential message—and each repeat would demand still greater volume, since the message was not properly heard the previous time.
It is in any case a time for spiritual examination of conscience for the entire country, and the world at large. What is the remedy for a nation and world that to a significant degree have lost sight of their absolute need for God, who no longer follow his commands of love and life, who no longer respect his authority for the termination of human life, and presently seek to be free of his authority for its beginning through the abomination of cloning?
The remedy, at once simple and profoundly mysterious, is the Mother. How could the mother of Jesus be posed as the remedy to the ubiquity of problems facing our nation and our world, as well as the immediate needs of the Katrina victims?
Because the Mother is the Mediatrix of all graces, and the answer to every single difficulty facing the human family today is remedied through the redemptive graces of Jesus Christ, Savior of the universe and solution to all its woes. As Co-redemptrix, she suffered alongside the Redeemer to merit these graces; as Mediatrix she distributes these graces to every open heart; as Advocate she brings the petitions for his graces to the throne of Christ the King.
The Mother is the remedy because the Son is the remedy, and it is the will of the Son that only through beholding the Mother given to us by him (cf. Jn. 19:25-27), that grace, redemption, and peace will be granted to our world. Mary is an essential part of Heaven’s peace plan, as the message of Fatima makes clear: "Only she can help you…God wishes to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart…in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph…and a period of peace will be granted to the world" (July 13, 1917).
Ultimately, because God wishes the world to recognize and acknowledge that it is only through the intercession of Mary, spiritual mother of all peoples and nations, that peace and grace will transform our present world into an era of peace, the pre-requisite for this historic Triumph of her Immaculate Heart and its consequent fruit of global peace is the official and solemn recognition of this saving action of Our Lady by the highest authority of the Church. A solemn papal declaration that we, the human family, acknowledge and accept God’s plan for peace as coming specifically through the profound intercession of Mary Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces and Advocate is what God awaits, and the Mother herself awaits, to bring the world the coveted graces of spiritual peace and global peace.
In short, Mary is the remedy, and the papal proclamation of her roles is a necessity for the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart and the prophesied era of peace. We must pray daily for the Dogma and the Triumph, if our hearts’ desire is an end to that degeneration, disaster, and war which is presently faced.
For some who may perceive the conclusion of Mary as the remedy for our times to be simplistic, pietistic and naïve, we close with the insight of the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger-- now Pope Benedict XVI, as articulated by interviewer Vittorio Messori in The Ratzinger Report: "To the crisis in the understanding of the Church, to the crisis of morality, to the crisis of woman, the Prefect has a remedy… ‘a remedy whose reputation seems to be clouded today with some Catholics but one that is more than ever relevant.’ It is the remedy that he designates with a short name: Mary." Written by Mark Miravalle, Mother of all Peoples
We pray and plea that Heaven will assist them. We pray that, rather than giving in to any possible temptation to shake their fists in anger at God for this tragedy, they will open their hearts to Abba Father with new or renewed faith and hope in the God whose mercy is infinite. The Heart of God, the Father of all mankind, will pour forth extraordinary spiritual graces to his children/refugees at this perilous hour, graces that can last for all eternity, regardless of the limitations of human modes of material assistance. The Father has not forsaken them. He has never been closer to them.
For some, it is intolerable at a time of such human suffering to speak of any possible connection between the devastation of Katrina and the specific moral evils for which New Orleans and its surrounding regions of Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi were nationally infamous: voodoo centers and haunted graveyard tours, homosexual bars and transvestite clubs, striptease and porno houses, gambling casinos and prostitution establishments, and the like. In fact, the hurricane has prevented the annual Big Easy festival previously scheduled to take place this Labor Day weekend entitled, "Southern Decadence," which is advertised as being "gayer than Mardi Gras" and a unique exhibition of "naked flesh."
Wouldn’t such a connection be judgmental and lacking in compassion for the victims at such a time of tragedy? Yet the reason why many Christians (and also non-Christians) are examining the possible connection between concentrated sin in a particular geographic area like New Orleans and God at least permitting that area to experience the brunt of a natural calamity is precisely for the purpose of mercy: to encourage the prevention of the potential repetition, or even escalation, of the human misery as tragic as that experienced by our beloved brothers and sisters in the southern Gulf coast right now.
If we do miss what is intended as a providential message about the immediate need for conversion, repentance, and a return to God beyond any securities that money and the material of this life can offer, then we set the stage for a repeat of this providential message—and each repeat would demand still greater volume, since the message was not properly heard the previous time.
It is in any case a time for spiritual examination of conscience for the entire country, and the world at large. What is the remedy for a nation and world that to a significant degree have lost sight of their absolute need for God, who no longer follow his commands of love and life, who no longer respect his authority for the termination of human life, and presently seek to be free of his authority for its beginning through the abomination of cloning?
The remedy, at once simple and profoundly mysterious, is the Mother. How could the mother of Jesus be posed as the remedy to the ubiquity of problems facing our nation and our world, as well as the immediate needs of the Katrina victims?
Because the Mother is the Mediatrix of all graces, and the answer to every single difficulty facing the human family today is remedied through the redemptive graces of Jesus Christ, Savior of the universe and solution to all its woes. As Co-redemptrix, she suffered alongside the Redeemer to merit these graces; as Mediatrix she distributes these graces to every open heart; as Advocate she brings the petitions for his graces to the throne of Christ the King.
The Mother is the remedy because the Son is the remedy, and it is the will of the Son that only through beholding the Mother given to us by him (cf. Jn. 19:25-27), that grace, redemption, and peace will be granted to our world. Mary is an essential part of Heaven’s peace plan, as the message of Fatima makes clear: "Only she can help you…God wishes to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart…in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph…and a period of peace will be granted to the world" (July 13, 1917).
Ultimately, because God wishes the world to recognize and acknowledge that it is only through the intercession of Mary, spiritual mother of all peoples and nations, that peace and grace will transform our present world into an era of peace, the pre-requisite for this historic Triumph of her Immaculate Heart and its consequent fruit of global peace is the official and solemn recognition of this saving action of Our Lady by the highest authority of the Church. A solemn papal declaration that we, the human family, acknowledge and accept God’s plan for peace as coming specifically through the profound intercession of Mary Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces and Advocate is what God awaits, and the Mother herself awaits, to bring the world the coveted graces of spiritual peace and global peace.
In short, Mary is the remedy, and the papal proclamation of her roles is a necessity for the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart and the prophesied era of peace. We must pray daily for the Dogma and the Triumph, if our hearts’ desire is an end to that degeneration, disaster, and war which is presently faced.
For some who may perceive the conclusion of Mary as the remedy for our times to be simplistic, pietistic and naïve, we close with the insight of the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger-- now Pope Benedict XVI, as articulated by interviewer Vittorio Messori in The Ratzinger Report: "To the crisis in the understanding of the Church, to the crisis of morality, to the crisis of woman, the Prefect has a remedy… ‘a remedy whose reputation seems to be clouded today with some Catholics but one that is more than ever relevant.’ It is the remedy that he designates with a short name: Mary." Written by Mark Miravalle, Mother of all Peoples
Friday, September 02, 2005
Restoring Health and Well-being to Wounded Soldiers
There is a great need now to care for our disabled service people who have sacrificed much in an effort to defend freedom in the world. Physical, mental and spiritual healing can take place in various ways. Medical experience has shown that physical recovery can be speeded and enhanced if one’s mind and spirit are actively engaged in meaningful projects. Medicine has also learned that helping others in constructive ways is a most effective way to attain personal satisfaction, restore confidence, and make oneself again feel needed and useful.
I believe that those who have suffered the trauma of warfare, like our service personnel, can help restore their health and well-being by aiding other victims of conflict. Especially deserving of help are children whose families have been scarred and destroyed by war or other tragedies.
Your views are sought on how to approach and listen to our wounded veterans to connect them directly with war orphans overseas and/or US children who lost a father or mother. The aim is to mutually rebuild lives, those of American service people and of young victims. Specific program activities under preparation could include material assistance to overseas orphanages, correspondence and visits, and educational support to individual orphans abroad or at home. Does this make sense? Or better said, how can this be done in cooperation with military hospitals to make it a reality in practical terms? Thank you for responding. Bernie
