Jan 25, 2021
The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) first began their work in Brazil, in the city of Alfenas, 100 years ago. Today, they continue to help local communities all over the country, wherever and whenever they are needed most.
Community cars for pastoral work
OLSH communities in the cities of Barração and Campinas are both raising funds to buy a car each, which will prove invaluable to their pastoral work in local areas.
Sisters in Barração cover a total of 17 mission stations in the city and surrounding area. Some of these stations are located up to 40km away from the city, catering to local farmers and their families who are not able to travel into the city to hear Mass. Sisters in Campinas run a local kindergarten, caring for 296 children from the ages of two to six for eight hours a day. The Sisters here provide food, education, and spiritual care to these vulnerable children, and the school survives on donations and goodwill.
Each of these two communities needs a car at a cost of €5,000, to be able to continue their essential daily work.
Children’s choir in Mirinzal
In Mirinzal, the local children’s choir run by Sr Maria is a safe haven for youths who come from backgrounds of severe hardship. Last year, we helped Sr Maria to buy musical instruments for the choir, and this year, she is asking us to help her to raise funds to buy three wireless microphones for the choir to use during Masses.
€500 will buy all three microphones, allowing the choir to continue to play wonderful music at parish celebrations.
Mass for remote communities
OLSH Sisters in Mirinzal are asking for your help in buying essential liturgical items for Mass, such as missals, chalices, and lectionaries, for three of the 18 mission stations they cover in remote locations across the north of Brazil.
€813 will provide liturgical items for families and individuals across three mission stations to continue to join together in faith and celebrate Mass in their spiritual communities.
Empowering local women
In Alfenas, an OLSH-run social work centre helps 65 families from the region,providing them with essential food supplies once a month. The Sisters here also have a special purpose in empowering local women, enabling them to learn various practical skills, such as sewing, which will help them to earn money and provide desperately needed financial support for their families.
The OLSH Sisters at the social work centre are raising funds to replace a number of tools in their sewing and fabric painting workshops. They need two cabinets and two sewing machines, which will allow them to continue their work in helping local women to learn invaluable skills for self-sufficiency.
€700 will buy items facilitating practical skills that will provide a lifetime of benefits to women and their families in the area.
CAN YOU HELP THE OLSH SISTERS IN BRAZIL?
Jan 21, 2021
The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) are a vital part of our Sacred Heart Family, working all over the world, often in partnership with MSCs, under our shared motto:
“May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved.”
CARING FOR THE ELDERLY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA
In Papua New Guinea, a community of 86 OLSH Sisters provide dedicated hands-on care for vulnerable individuals and families, from young children to the elderly. In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, financial assistance from the Irish Province allowed the OLSH Sisters in Papua New Guinea to provide extra safety measures in the Hartzer Centre, an aged-care centre attached to the main convent in Port Moresby, the country’s capital, where the Sisters care for elderly OLSH Sisters and MSC missionary priests who have devoted their lives to serving the people of Papua New Guinea.
As we all know, hygiene is one of the most vital defences against the coronavirus, and our mission friends in Ireland and the UK have already helped to provide extra sinks for improved safety measures. The Hartzer Centre has eight rooms for their elderly residents, but the centre does not have a dedicated laundry area of its own, and this creates significant difficulties surrounding hygiene as the centre’s nurses must bring all dirty laundry through the convent dining room to reach the communal washing area.
Sr Relida, Provincial of the OLSH Sisters in Papua New Guinea, has sent her “deep gratitude” for the changes we have already helped to make, and now asks if our mission friends in the Irish Province could please help the Sisters to build a small laundry area for the Hartzer Centre, to ensure the continued safety and care of vulnerable elderly residents.
In a time where good hygiene can quite literally save lives, especially in the case of the elderly and infirm, can you help us to help the Hartzer Centre?
A donation of €235 will buy a washing machine for the centre, while the new laundry room will cost €7,100 in total.
SOWING SEEDS FOR THE FUTURE IN SOUTH SUDAN
The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart recently marked 25 years of service in South Sudan, where they have been involved in everything from education and nursing to general pastoral work.Most recently, the Sisters have been working to build gardens which will help to provide a stable and sustainable source of food and water to families in the region who have very little.
The gardens contain bores which are drilled and fitted with a pump, a tank, and a watering system.
These gardens are used to grow a variety of vegetables, and, when cultivated to their full potential, will be hugely beneficial in the long-term provision of nutritious food supplies to local families, who are up against a daily struggle to afford to feed their children.
The gardens are an investment which will provide years upon years of profit to local communities, from being a source of nutritious food to providing local students who tend to the crops with the physical and mental benefits of gardening.
CAN YOU HELP THE OLSH SISTERS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Jan 23, 2020
The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) are a vital part of our Sacred Heart Family, working all over the world, often in partnership with MSCs, under our shared motto:
“May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved.”
OLSH in Brazil
Helping a children’s choir
The municipality of Mirinzal is a small, remote region in Maranhão, Brazil. Sr Maria José dos Santos Lira runs a children’s choir in the area, which gives local children great motivation and inspiration to be part of something bigger. The OLSH Sisters teach the children about music and liturgy, and choir regularly performs during special liturgical events in the parish.
Families in the region have very little, and the OLSH Sisters are doing their best to keep the choir going with the extremely limited resources available to them. The choir are currently raising funds for new equipment, including two microphones, a cajon (a local musical instrument), and a keyboard stand.
The cost of these items is low: €21.50 will buy a microphone, €43 will pay for their new cajon, and a new keyboard stand costs just €21.50. A small donation will make a truly great difference to these children as they create bright and beautiful music in a life dogged by hardship and poverty.
A centre for the elderly
In the convent in São Paulo, Brazil, Sr Maria da Paricida leads the sisters in local social work. Twice a week, elderly people from the area attend workshops that provide lessons in different life skills, such as technology classes, yoga sessions, English classes, embroidery lessons, and choir practise, among other things. The main aim of the Sisters’ work here is to help these elderly people feel part of the wider community, fighting in the face of loneliness and the depression brought about by extended solitude.
The majority of people who come to these workshops are very poor, and have no other opportunities to meet and mix with others. However, the hall where they currently gathering is in poor condition and is currently in need of repair to create a comfortable space for these elderly people to gather together to learn. The Sisters here are raising funds to buy paint as part of the hall restoration.
A donation of just €110 will provide paint for the entire hall, and will help to provide a bright, comfortable space for elderly people who have nowhere else to go.
Residents’ Association Stove
The area of Morumbinho, on the outskirts of the city of São Paulo, is home to approximate 800 families. The majority of these families are migrants who are living in extreme poverty. The local Residents’ Association have appealed to the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in the Parish of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for funds to purchase a professional stove, which will allow them to cook for the families who are unable to provide meals for themselves.
Just €175 will cover the cost of the new stove and provide desperately needed meals for families who have no other way to feed themselves.
OLSH in Cameroon
As a result of social and political unrest in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon, many children have been displaced from their homes and families, and are seeking shelter with extended family in the towns of Baffusam, Yaounde, and Douala. Many of these children are suffering greatly as a result of malnutrition and poor hygiene, and the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in the locality are doing their best to help.
Regional leader Sr Marie Solange OKO is raising funds for an aid project which will assist 50 internally displaced children in the Yaounde region, providing food, essential medication, and basic hygiene products.
Just €125 will support one of these children for five months.
CAN YOU HELP THE OLSH SISTERS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
OLSH in Papua New Guinea
A safe Novitiate Chapel
The OLSH Novitiate in Papua New Guinea is located on Yule Island, where the first MSCs and OLSH Sisters began their mission over 130 years ago. Since then, the OLSH Sisters in the region have set up schools and health centres to help local communities, and today, there are 86 Sisters currently working in the area.
Recently, the Sisters’ novitiate chapel had to be demolished following an infestation by white ants. They are sorely feeling the lack of this sacred space, and are raising funds to rebuild the chapel at a total cost of €4,800.
Daru School Library Books
The region of Daru in Papua New Guinea is an extremely isolated one, which takes five days to reach by boat, or a flight in a small place followed by another journey on land. This area is plagued by poverty and hardship, and two OLSH Sisters are currently teaching in the school there. The conditions are very basic, and the school’s library facilities are extremely limited. The books are old and in poor condition, and students must share books between them during their classes.
The Sisters in the Daru school are appealing for help, at a cost of €1,330 to purchase the books that the school so desperately needs. Education is the only hope for many of these children, and the gift of a book can make all the difference to their future.
OLSH in the Philippines
Sr Precy Peralta is principal of the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Integrated School, an OLSH-run pre-school in the Philippines that currently accommodates 54 children. The majority of these children come from backgrounds of extreme poverty, and resources are very limited within the school.
The school is currently in need of a steel cabinet to store important documents safely, at a cost of €300, and a TV for classroom use, at a cost of €250. These small additions will make a great difference to the quality of education and administration for the staff and children at the school.
OLSH in South Sudan
The region of Mapuordit is currently home to four OLSH Sisters, two from Australia and two from Indonesia, who minister to the two groups living in the area, the Dinka and the Jur. Children from both groups attend the OLSH primary and secondary schools there, with 1,400 primary school pupils and 440 secondary school students.
In recent years, the OLSH Sisters have been trying to make the best possible use of the land around the schools by cultivating it for growth. The Sisters currently grow vegetables such as sweet potatoes and green vegetables for consumption by local families, using the natural resources available to provide a much-needed food source. The land in the region is extremely fertile, but with six months of regular rain and a six-month dry season, the garden is in need of a simple irrigation system to allow it to be used on a year-round basis.
The Sisters here are appealing for the funds to successfully establish and maintain two gardens. With a borehole fitted with a hand pump costing €8,000, the cost of each garden will total just over €10,000 – an investment which will provide years upon years of profit to local communities, from being a source of nutritious food to providing students with the physical and mental benefits of gardening.
PLEASE SUPPORT OLSH GLOBAL OUTREACH
Nov 21, 2019
It is a pleasure to share these wonderful pictures from a recent Children’s Liturgy at the Holy Family Care Centre in Ofcolaco, South Africa, which took place at the end of September.
Founded in 2002 and run by the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) with the support of the MSC, the Holy Family Care Centre is an invaluable facility for young children who are very ill and who, in many cases, have been orphaned or abandoned. These children are primarily HIV positive and are in urgent need of care. The Holy Family Care Centre can accommodate 70 children, and its facilities are stretched to full capacity on a daily basis.
The priority of this centre is quality of life. The sisters and volunteers at Holy Family see these children as God’s gift, and the simple joy, excitement, and love of the children make the Holy Family Care Centre a place of laughter, fun, and activity.
“The children and staff have benefited enormously from the funding received from the MSC Missions Office in Ireland,” wrote Sr Sally Duigan FDNSC, who runs the care centre, in a letter to our MSC Missions. “We are so grateful.”
“Above all, we continue to give our children love, security, and care, in the hope they will thrive.”
The photos from the Children’s Liturgy celebrations demonstrate perfectly the sense of joy, unity, family, and faith that are at the core of the Holy Family ethos. We are delighted to continue to work closely with the Holy Family team in building a brighter future for the children of the Limpopo Province and beyond.
Find out more about our work with the Holy Family Centre: https://www.mscmissions.ie/about-us/what-we-do/our-projects/ofcolaco-south-africa/
Photos via MSC Mission Office on Facebook.
PLEASE SUPPORT OUR MSC MISSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Sep 27, 2019
This year’s annual Masses for deceased MSCs and Daughters of the Lady of the Sacred Heart will take place around the country in November, as we remember those who have gone before us in the light of the Lord.
Masses will take place on the following dates:
Sunday, November 3rd at 3.00pm:
- Sacred Heart Church, Western Road, Cork
- Woodview House, Mt. Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin
- Croí Nua, Rosary Lane, Taylors Hill, Galway
Sunday, November 17th at 2.00pm:
- St Patrick’s Church, Ballybay, Co. Monaghan
We would like to invite you to pray with us during the month of the Holy Souls as we remember the MSCs and Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart who worked so hard to ensure that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is known and loved everywhere, and by everyone.
