The MCSPA members in Turkana organized a 2-day workshop for teachers working in MCSPA-run and sponsored schools focused on matters of safeguarding. The workshop dealt with corporal punishment and alternative disciplining mechanisms, and how to create a child-friendly environment in schools and also child-growth and development.

Teachers and child care agents came from the 4 missions of Nariokotome, Kokuselei, Lobur and Todonyang. The facilitator of the workshop was Prof. George Muthaa, Deputy Principal Academics and Finance at Turkana University College. It was a colourful day and the participants were generally happy with the input and content of the workshop.

At the end of the workshop, the participants were issued with certificates and safeguarding commitment forms.

We hope that this event will mark the beginning of a renewed commitment by teachers in our schools to embrace the safeguarding policies that MCSPA upholds.

Fr. Wycliffe Ochieng, MCSPA
Todonyang Mission

We would like to celebrate and give thanks to the families of Colombia who have taken a step towards generosity without measure. They have come together with unconditional love to stand in solidarity with families that are less fortunate and who suffer poverty in Turkana, Kenya.

A few months ago, while we were in the city of Villavicencio we presented the need for scholarships for Turkana children whose families simply cannot afford to put them through school due to extreme poverty. These children however possess enormous potential and we were disheartened at a bleak future for them due to the lack of resources.

Hence, some families did feel called to not only assist with the studies of these children but to also get involved in a closer way with the MCSPA. Today we are creating a network of support between families in Villavicencio and Kokuselei Mission to give a boost to these children’s education. We hope that this network will continue to grow and that both parties can feel that love is concretised in works that lead to common good, where everyone has something to give, and no one is exempt from receiving.

We wish to continue promoting values of solidarity since we firmly believe that we can all give to those who need our helping hands, ideas, service, and financial support, so that we all have the opportunity to live lives in full.

Alexia Moreno, MCSPA

Bogotá, Colombia.

Today, March 05, we had a grand celebration at the Children’s Special Education Room at Muketuri. The 9 special-needs children, together with their parents, teachers, volunteers and missionaries, celebrated the birthday of all the children with a huge cake topped with candles, and a large typical Ethiopian bread with presents for all the children and teachers.

This “Special Room” started 12 years ago in order to overcome the tremendous challenge for persons with slower learning capacities who are stigmatised in their society. It all began when we first encountered Workine and Tigist, two children paralysed with leukodystrophy degeneration and hidden inside their homesteads, severely malnourished. It took much effort on our part to convince their parents that their children’s condition was neither a punishment nor a curse. At first, it was difficult to find a person to work with them but we eventually found Aberash, a loving mother who had gone through very much with the sickness of her own child Yohanes.

Soon, more children came and more women were accepted to work at the “Special Room”. Though they had little studies, these women learned a lot from volunteers coming from Chile and Spain: professionals, psychologists, therapists etc.

Today 9 children and 4 teachers are stationed at the Room: children with Down’s Syndrome, autism, hemiparesis … all of them receiving medical care, nutrition and therapy. Last year we built a physiotherapy room, where each child has his or her own PT material to improve his or her capacities.

Recently the parents of the children had the opportunity to meet a Spanish mother of a child with autism; the impact of sharing experiences and feelings proved very supportive and moving.

Now, after all these years, the people of Muketuri know that at the St. Joseph Mother and Child Centre, there are special-needs children who at one time were kept from public view and whom no one wished to talk about. Now all the children at the nursery know and play with these children, some of whom cannot walk or talk, while some make “strange” movements, but they all laugh and play together as children do. These “special-needs children” are considered human beings like everyone else, and while their condition remains a mystery, they are accepted and their families no longer reject them.

It has been a long and difficult journey, and while it continues to be challenging still, these children have grown; some are already teenagers. Their presence forms an integral part of the Mission, making the latter a concrete sign of an option for welcoming the most vulnerable in our midst.

By Lourdes Larruy, MCSPA
Muketuri Mission, Ethiopia

These days we are especially attentive to our students from Riokomor and Kokuselei who are taking their national exams in the public schools of these two places.

They have all been part of a journey started by the families of these children and the MCSPA missionaries present in these communities. It is a journey in which we all continue to learn that only generosity in favor of the little ones will guarantee a better present and future, especially when water, nutrition, and health are assured.

We are happy that many of them are completing their primary school studies and that, little by little, they can open the doors to new opportunities to improve the lives of their families and communities.

We thank all those who make it possible for children and young people in this beautiful place in the north of Turkana to have the possibility of studying. And we encourage more people to join us and support the education of all of them, so full of talent and enthusiasm to improve!

Dear friends and family,
We would like to share with you the summary updates of the activities that we have done in the previous months in ‘El Paraiso’:

Psychological support to families:

• A professor and some of the students of Psychopedagogy from Emiliano Zapata University visit us every 15 days, organising some activities with the children and youth.
• Two outings have been organised to visit Cumbres High School, north campus, together with children and mothers from Paraiso. Activities such as; celebrations, sports games and recreation, impacted positively on coexistence and the creation of bonds of friendship between youth, children and their families

. We would like to thank all the friends who took part in the Children’s Day celebration, where 150 people attended joyfully. 

• UVM students and professors also conduct workshops with the youth and children twice a week to implement Psychosocial intervention. Moreover, constant visits by Psychologists and therapists provide psychological support to different groups of people and individuals in Paraiso, as well as sharing some advice to the most committed volunteers.

Health and Nutrition:

• Hygiene evaluations, reviews and workshops on dental health have been carried out by a Dentist every 15 days. We are looking forward to receiving more support to provide dental treatments.
• Students and teachers from Cumbres high school, implemented a study among people with a high level of diabetes, they formulated evaluations, and specific care guidelines in each case and supported several families with glucometers and lancets.
• Slowly, we continue to equip the dispensary with medicine donations. Through this, we have a “mini pharmacy” in which patients can get medical prescriptions.

We continue with our support for the chronically ill people with their treatments, physiotherapy, transport and shopping of medicines.

• With the collaboration of UVM-Medicine University and some friends, we distributed 60 pantries to different families in Paraiso.

Veterinary Campaign:

• The organisation of a cat and dog sterilisation campaign was done in Paraiso. To make the campaign successful, 100 animals had to be sterilised, we achieved 122!

Housing Programme:

• With the special collaboration of ‘Dibujando otra Realidad, AC’, training was offered to the families on the construction of houses. So far, we are almost finishing another wooden house. 9 houses were built with the help of ‘Moviendo a Más’ group and  ‘Un techo para mi país’ in El Paraíso.

We thank God for allowing us to achieve an impact on the actions of love, hope and solidarity between the families, friends and close collaborators of the MCSPA in Mexico for supporting the mission of El Paraíso in Xochimilco in its different dimensions. Lastly, we also extend our gratitude to appreciate all the collaborators from different trenches of the world for the love and support that keeps us going.

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This month, we have enjoyed promoting chess practice in two of our missions in Turkana. We want to help develop the skills of this game to positively impact the children’s academic level and the teachers’ work.

Thanks to Colombian friends and other benefactors of the Kokuselei mission, we have been able to inaugurate 3 chess clubs in Todonyang, Riokomor, and Kokuselei. And to celebrate the First Chess Tournament at the Don Bosco Center in Kokuselei with amazing results and a very good experience for all.

Last Friday, at Startup Lions ICT Hub Loropio, we MCSPA missionaries of the Kokuselei mission held a two-day workshop with the 40 women volunteers of the committees responsible for our eleven Mother-Child Centers and the child-care agents of each centre. This celebration marked 15 years since the nutrition program was firmly established and has been running throughout in the mountain area of Nariokotome Parish. Two days in which we celebrated the generosity and perseverance of many people who have participated in concrete ways to the success of the program: hundreds of Turkana children every year who can eat twice a day and grow up healthy!

Our special thanks to the men and women of the committees of our mother-child centers, who have voluntarily and cheerfully served and unconditionally loved the children. All the families in more than 14 communities covered by the Kokuselei mission appreciate that these volunteers take on the daily responsibility of preparing breakfast, lunch and assisting in the daily hygiene of the children in a part of Kenya where hunger is still the main challenge to be solved.

We all thank the benefactors who have been part of starting and maintaining these children’s centres, thanks to which infant mortality caused by hunger has been reduced in this area. Our thanks also to the child-care agents, young women and men who help us to monitor the nutrition and health of the children and with various educational activities in each centre.

As missionaries, we want to continue to serve the most vulnerable and respond concretely to the needs of the children of Turkana.  And we trust that these children’s centres will continue to encourage their communities to transmit the virtues of generosity and perseverance, both essential to achieve true development.

Diana Trompetero MCSPA

Very recently, women from Kakuta, one of the Nyangatom villages that the MCSPA missionaries serve from Prince of Peace Catholic Mission (Nyangatom-Ethiopia), received a nutritional talk about the goodness of Moringa Plant.

This plant is an excellent source of green vegetables when there is little alternative food of this kind available.

Its high content of vitamin A, was highlighted during the talk. This is due to the high prevalence of lack of enough this important vitamin in the diet of the people in this area. This lack of such nutrient can cause visual problems in both children and adults in the long run.

Seeds were given to the interested spectators, and we taught them practically how to cook and consume it. We hope that the women who are so important in improving the life of the family, can convince themselves of the goodness of this super-plant. By this, they could improve their nutrition and reduce the risk of having eye problems, or any other problem related with the lack of vitamins in the future.

Javiera Olivares

At the St. Joseph’s Mother and Child Center at Muketuri, we welcomed Advent with a play. On 5th December, the children of Grade 3 acted out the passage of Isaiah which describes how the wild beasts would be led in peace under the protection of a little child who announces peace.
In this time of violence and uncertainty in the country, the MCSPA promotes peace through different activities.

Lourdes Larruy MCSPA

On the afternoon of 7^th September 2019, Bishops Markos Gebremedhin from Jimma-Bonga, Ethiopia, and Dominic Kimengich from Lodwar, Kenya, blessed the new St. John XXIII – Ekisil (Peace) Day care Centre for Small Children in Kakuta, Nyangatom, Ethiopia.

The celebration was very colorful and joyful as the people of Kakuta gathered to receive the two bishops, the fathers and the representatives of the MCSPA team who attended the celebration, with dances and songs.

The Day-care centre will cater for children from 3 to 6 years of age through different activities such as pre-school education, songs, health and higiene, agriculture, nutrition and peace education.

In addition the centre aims to be a place of encounter with the parents of the children, where relevant information will be shared with them, especially towards improving the education of the small children.

The new school is still in the process of being constructed. So far we have been able to complete one classroom, with a second one under construction, and the fence. We thank all the benefactors and friends who have been supporting this project, especially Trekking for Kids, Fundación Kyrene and Ekisil Group.

We continue asking for your prayers and support to be able to provide a better life for the children of Kakuta.

Fr. David Escrich MCSPA