Living with dignity

Basic help for a more dignified life as a child of God at the Tabor of Hope Shrine in Brasilia/DF

Esperanza de muchas familias carenciadas... Hope of many poer families Eine echte Hoffnung für viele mittellose Familien
Peregrinos Pilgrims Pilger
La familia de Schoenstatt en torno del Santuario se compromete con la vida y su dignidad ... The Schoenstatt Family around the Shrine is committed to the protection and dignity of life … Die Schönstattfamilie rund ums Heiligtum engagiert sich für den Schutz und die Würde des Lebens ...
... con hechos concretos ...with concrete deeds ... mit konkreten Taten Fotos: Ir. M. Nilza © 2009

BRAZIL, Sr. M. Nilza. The main aim of the International Schoenstatt Work is to collaborate in the religious and moral renewal of the world. This is why we educate the new person, who then commits himself to building a new world, filled with joy and total fulfillment each brother. Keeping with this goal and in conjunction with its extensive and deep spiritual movement, Schoenstatt has various initiatives to help the poorest of the poor by giving them the basic help so that they can have a more dignified life, as a child of God. The commitment to the defense of life must be accompanied by the promotion of human life. This is what we do at the shrine in the heart of Brazil: the Hope-Living with Dignity Project at the Tabor of Hope Shrine in Brasilia/DF.

From our source of grace, the project aims to give needy families around the Shrine new hope for their lives and bring a ray of light to the darkness that fills so many Brazilian homes, particularly, isolated families who live at the margins of the Brazilian capital.

This is a very new project which took its first and small steps in Itapuã, close to the Tabor of Hope Shrine and is supported by members of the Schoenstatt Movement, the Pilgrim Mother Campaign, as well as the generous contributions of the community that comes to the Masses at the shrine and who help us through the Solidarity Sundays that take place on the second Sunday of each month. This is how we receive food supplies, clothes, shoes, utensils, toys, etc.

How was our social project born?

Given our desire to help promote life and help our Mother and Queen in her mission, we contacted several social organizations in the region. But our Mother and Queen of hope made it her task to show us how to start our concrete service of promoting life.

Via the Schoenstatt Pilgrim Mother Campaign missionaries who work in Itapuã, our Mother and Queen went to the aid of needy families and, together with her, we want to let the sun of hope shine in their homes.

The project aims to provide effective help so that these families can develop their potential and abilities and overcome their current the precarious situation they find themselves in as a result of high levels of unemployment in the region, precarious basic sanitation conditions, little education and a lack of the basic notions of hygiene, health and citizenship. We have, therefore, committed ourselves to promoting human life and generating funds that will allow them to improve their living standards.

Challenges and Hopes

The project carries out its activities by visiting homes and holding meetings with the coordination team at the shrine. We plan to build an area next to the shrine that offers professional training activities and/or generate income that will allow us to perfect and meet the needs of the families within the project. This is an enormous challenge because the community that the Blessed Mother chose is very large and many of the families cry out for this light of hope that shines out from our Schoenstatt Tabor.

Translation: Sarah-Leah Pimentel, South Africa