Feb 15, 2024
Congratulations are in order for the MSC community and their superb team at the MSC Centre for the Poor in the Philippines. On December 15th, 2023, Fr Richie Gomez MSC, community leader at the Centre, attended an awards ceremony hosted by the Villar Foundation in Las Piñas City, where the MSC Centre for the Poor Agriculture Cooperative (MSC CEPAGCO) were honoured to accept an award for being one of the Outstanding Community Enterprises in the country.
Since its establishment five years ago, the MSC Centre for the Poor has gone from strength to strength, with the MSC CEPAGCO providing invaluable assistance to local communities throughout the COVID pandemic and beyond. With a dedicated focus on food sustainability and care of our common home, the agricultural cooperative aims to educate and empower both rural and urban families and communities with the skills they need to create sustainable livelihoods, while nurturing and caring for the earth for future generations to come.
From addressing plastic waste to organising clean water programmes, the MSC Centre for the Poor Agricultural Cooperative are tireless in their work to improve the quality of life of the people in their programmes, while working in harmony with the natural world.
“Thank you Villar Foundation for recognizing our effort and advocacy on organic sustainable agriculture, environmental protection, food security and poverty reduction,” posted the Facebook page for the MSC Centre for the Poor as they shared the news of the 2023 Villar Sipag Award. “Congratulations to Fr. Richie and to all MSC CEPAGCO staff and volunteers who have been instrumental in winning such award!”
We add our congratulations to theirs, and we wish Fr Richie and all the MSC CEPAGCO community continued success in their phenomenal efforts to make an instrumental difference to the lives of disadvantaged families in the Philippines.
Images via the Facebook page for the MSC Centre for the Poor
IF YOU CAN, PLEASE SUPPORT MSC CENTRE FOR THE POOR
Feb 8, 2024
The MSC Mission Office in the Philippines have been working in rapid response with the MSC Centre for the Poor to issue essential emergency aid to several communities that have been critically affected by severe flooding in the Mindanao region.
The relief project aims to help as many families as possible who have been displaced by catastrophic flooding across the Mindanao area in late January/early February. Flash flooding has caused landslides and as yet untold destruction in this region and beyond, with the death toll climbing to the high teens in the days following the disaster. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, while homes and business premises alike have been destroyed, with power outages and interruptions to the water supply also reported.
On February 5th, the MSC Centre for the Poor began distributing vital emergency relief aid to families impacted in Tagbina, in Surigao del Sur. With the emergency response team springing to immediate action, a total of 142 families have received urgent aid so far, as they attempt to recover from the devastation wreaked by the flood waters.
The relief project is ongoing as the outreach team continue in their efforts to help families to repair and rebuild across different areas of the Mindano region. Together, the MSC Centre for the Poor and the MSC Mission Office Philippines are organising the next phase of the mission response project, to support families who have been displaced by flood waters in the districts of Talacogon and San Luis, Agusan del Sur.
Together, we keep our MSC brothers in the Philippines Province, and the communities of Mindanao, in our prayers, as they work to rebuild lives and livelihoods in the face of this overwhelming ordeal.
Images via the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office Philippines, Inc.
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Nov 21, 2023
Welcome to this year’s Winter edition of the MSC Message!
• Read a special greeting from Fr John Fitzgerald MSC, Director of the MSC Missions Office.
• We welcome Fr Joe McGee MSC as the new Provincial Superior along with our new Provincial team, Fr Dave Nixon MSC and Fr Manus Ferry MSC, Fr John Bennett MSC, Fr Alan Whelan MSC.
• More updates from Fr Alan Neville MSC in South Sudan, where a Peace walk was in progress and new members were welcomed to the diocese.
• Fr Remigius reaches out to us to help rebuild his parish Church which had been damaged by high winds in Keelakarai, in South India.
• An update from some of the work we have done in the Phillipines after Typhoon Odette Appeal in 2021.
Read the Winter 2023 edition of the MSC Message
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Feb 2, 2023
As 2022 reached its end, the MSC Mission Office in the Philippines once again ran their Christmas Basket project, which this year saw over 1,000 pledges helping families in the remote communities of Bataan and Caloocan City.
Care packages containing groceries and essentials were distributed in Calcoocan City and in St Thomas Aquinas Parish, Bangkal, Abucay, Bataan at the end of December. Working together with the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Mission Station and a team of wonderful volunteers, the Missions Office were able to raise enough funds for over 1,000 Christmas baskets to help families in need. Each pledge for a basket was marked at a value of 500 Philippine pesos, which meant that a whole family’s Christmas could be entirely transformed for a little under €8.50 per household.
These photos, from the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office in the Philippines, show the distribution of Christmas baskets in the parish of St Thomas Aquinas in Bataan, led by Fr Ace Yu MSC with the help of parishioners and volunteers. You can also click here to watch a video from the Christmas basket distribution event in Caloocan City, courtesy of the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Mission Station.
“We would like to thank all our donors and mission partners who supported us in the campaign to bring joy this Christmas season,” posted the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office in the Philippines. “We also thank the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Mission Station and all the volunteers who help us to make this project possible. To all of you, MARAMING, MARAMING SALAMAT PO! (Thank you, thank you very much!)”
Images via the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office in the Philippines.
Video link via the Facebook page for the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Mission Station.
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Jan 19, 2023
At the end of 2022, the Philippines Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart marked the completion of the Gilutongan Island phase of the MSC Typhoon Odette Housing Project with the blessing of the newly constructed houses in the area, just short of a year after Typhoon Odette hit the region in December 2021.
The house blessing ceremony took place at the end of November, with Fr Joel Bonza MSC (Cebu District Superior) and Fr Samuel Patriarca MSC (Director of the Philippines Mission Office), leading the celebrations, alongside several MSC priests from the Cebu District, including Fr Reynante Joseph Ga, Fr Ramil Baluran and Fr Juls Amaneo.
Hundreds of thousands of families found themselves displaced from their homes in December 2021, when Typhoon Odette hit the Philippines with devastating consequences. The super-typhoon was the strongest storm of the year, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries, and damaging – often destroying – hundreds of thousands of homes. Recalling the impact of the typhoon shortly after it passed, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart – Social Initiative and Collaborative Action Project said, “When it made landfall, winds of up to 210 km per hour were uprooting coconut trees, ripping down electricity poles, and hurling slabs of corrugated tin and wood through the air.”
Work had commenced on the Gilutongan Island project, situated in Cordova, Cebu, back in July 2022, following the first stage of the Typhoon Odette Housing Project in Bayagnan Island, Surigao City, earlier in the year. As reported by the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office in the Philippines, a total of 254 households benefitted from the Gilutongan Island phase of the project, including 108 homes that had been completely destroyed by Typhoon Odette, and 146 houses that had partial damage.
“On behalf of the beneficiaries, we thank all our donors, mission partners and volunteers who helped us in many ways to make this project possible,” read a post on the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office in the Philippines. “We also extend our gratitude to the Task Force Typhoon Odette – Gilutongan and the community leaders who worked hard in the implementation and monitoring of the project. To all of you, DAGHANG SALAMAT KANINYONG TANAN! (Thank you all so much!)”
Now, a year after the storm, we send our heartfelt congratulations and blessings to our MSC brothers in the Philippines, and to the families and communities who have been working so hard to rebuild their homes and their lives since. We keep them in our prayers, that they may be safe and filled with hope as we begin a new year and mark a new chapter for the people of Gilutongan Island.
Images via the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office Philippines, Inc.
PLEASE HELP OUR SACRED HEART FAMILY IN THE PHILIPPINES
