We partner the Australian community to empower vulnerable groups of children, youth and women in Asia-Pacific with special emphasis on those marginalised, overlooked or with disabilities. Support is offered irrespective of culture, race, gender or religion to programs addressing poverty alleviation & social development. Support always respects the dignity of partners and beneficiaries, shares their hopes and dreams helps them help themselves. Donations go 100% to their beneficiaries.
Over the past 20 years, 8 ‘Huilings’ have been opened in China to help our disabled brothers and sisters.Huiling’s vision is to create an environment where people with mental disabilities have the right to ask for and receive help from our society – to be able to live in a community enjoying equal opportunities. To achieve this vision, Huiling offers services to help improve the lives of people with mental disability.
The Marist Mission Centre is currently supporting 2 of the 8 Huiling initiatives – Beijing and Guangzhou.To read more about these projects please click on the following:
I am in Ranong and cannot sleep. For the geographically challenged, think Isthmus of Kra in southern Thailand at the point where Burma ends and Muslim Thailand begins, going down to Malaysia. I am in the Marist Fathers' house.
Outside, the fish factory that never sleeps is churning out packaged prawns for markets far away. The people working in it are illegal migrants from Burma, paid a pittance and treated as sub humans. As illegals, they can be arrested by the Thai police but usually pay a 'fine' to escape jail — for a while.
Young Burmese men as young as 15 and 16 come off the fishing boats owned by Thai or Burmese entrepreneurs, their pockets brimming with baht, swagger in their step, and head for the tiny brothels by the side of the road near the port, where HIV awaits them.
Only the strong return from the fishing trips. If you are ill and cannot work, you can be tipped into the sea along with the other rubbish for the seagulls. If you trip and fall overboard, the boat ploughs on regardless.
Young Burmese women inlongyi, with long, black hair tied in a ponytail, stand out and can be abducted by men in dark glasses in passing cars and taken to the brothels and bars of Phuket, Bangkok or Pattaya. Being illegal with no papers or rights, they disappear, to the despair of their parents. It's part of the dangerous deal of crossing the border from a regime that regards most of its people as scum to a country where a subsistence income can at least be earned.
HIV is rife here — among the Thai and the Burmese. The Global Fund gives money to Thailand for those living with the virus but Thai doctors in Ranong, which has more Burmese than Thai, say the cash for anti-retrovirals is only for Thais. So the Burmese die. A few are saved by the Marists among other religious groups with funds from an NGO. But who decides who lives and who dies?
A young Burmese boy of nine who was found abandoned in the forest and then cared for by a poor Burmese family with support from the Marists plays with the priest's big toe. He ran away again but promised he wouldn't do it in future if 'Father' bought him a TV. He is not quite ready for the factory or the fishing boats and is desperately vulnerable.
A young girl of 15 dressed in a school uniform, her hair cut short like a Thai to escape abduction, is too young for the ACU online diploma but asks to attend anyway to learn, just to be part of the dream of having higher education. She is lucky that her parents don't force her into the fish factory.
We visit a young fishermen and his wife in a wooden warren of tiny hovels for the dispossessed. It leans over the water so that when the Thai police come they can abandon their few possessions (an ancient black and white TV, a few dishes, a mattress) and dive into the river to escape the fine/bribe.
Both have HIV and they lost their baby to the virus the year before. They show us a grainy picture of the child, beautiful as all infants are, and we are stunned into silence. The dignity of the couple in their immense human suffering awes us.
A few hours south of here, tourists soak up the sun on the beaches of Ko Samui, Phuket and the islands of the film,The Beach. In the lead-up to Christmas, the contrast is striking.
In Ranong, through an open door, I see a Burmese woman in the lotus position meditating and venerating the Buddha, hoping the next incarnation will be better than the misery of this existence, as a beatific smile crosses her face.
Happy Christmas.
About the author:
Duncan MacLaren coordinates Australian Catholic University's Refugee Program on the Thai-Burma border and lectures in Catholic Approaches to Humanitarian and Development Work. He worked for Caritas for over 25 years and, prior to coming to Australia in 2007, was based in the Vatican as Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis.
Afghanistan’s Hazara people, targeted by the Taliban, still have a strong reason to seek protection from countries like Australia, writes Michelle Dimasi in Kabul. Read more...
Dimasi, M. 2010, 'The beginning of the journey', Inside Story, Current Affairs and Culture, viewed on 07 October 2010, http://inside.org.au/the-beginning-of-the-journey/.
The Australian Bishops Conference and the NSW Association of Religious – priests, sisters, brothers and their networks have their views on Border Security and Immigration debate preceding the upcoming election. Their views reflect solidly on what the Gospels expect from the disciples of Jesus. The secular media and politicians seem to be taking the lower path on these issues which is sad.
* Please click on the images to view the articles.
The Kuya Centre was established in 1991 by an association of religious brothers in the Philippines. The aim of the centre is to reunite street children with family or refer them to a more stable and supportive living arrangement.
The centre is run by a budget that is made up of the income generated by the efforts of the kids themselves as well as funds from International Marist partners. If you would like to help this project, you can make a designated donation to Kuya Centre for Street Children through the Marist Mission Centre.
Marist Asia Pacific Solidarity 2010, ‘Kuya Centre for Street Children’, viewed on 24 June 2010, http://www.maristsolidarity.net.au/maps/index.php?option=com_
Pope Benedict XVI says industrialised countries have to be responsible over environmental problems and that government policies, the activities of multinationals, and individual behaviour all have an impact on the environment.
In a message for World Peace Day on January 1 2010, released this week, the pontiff states: "It is indeed important to recognise, among the causes of the current ecological crisis, the historic responsibility of the industrialised countries."
"Less developed countries, and especially emerging nations, are not however exonerated from their responsibility... because the duty of gradually adopting effective environmental measures and policies belongs to all," he was quoted saying by an AFP report in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"We cannot remain indifferent to what is happening around us, for the deterioration of any one part of the planet affects us all," the pope said, according to a report by the Catholic News Service.
"Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes and the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions?" the pope asked.
"It is becoming more and more evident that the issue of environmental degradation challenges us to examine our lifestyle and the prevailing models of consumption and production, which are often unsustainable from a social, environmental and even economic point of view," the pope said.
CIDSE and Caritas Internationalis, the world's largest alliance of aid and development agencies, say the proposed‘Copenhagen Accord’ is a weak and morally reprehensible deal which will spell disaster for millions of the world’s poorest people.
“People in developing countries are already struggling with the effects of climate change. We only have a short window of opportunity to prevent even worse to come. The deal put forward in Copenhagen fails to provide the commitments that the science says is required. Millions of people are now fighting to keep their heads above water while political leaders stall’, said Niamh Garvey of CIDSE member Trócaire/Caritas Ireland from the Bella Center.
“It suggests an unambitious non-binding agreement that sees countries set their own individual targets based on what is considered economically and politically viable rather than what is required by science and justice,” she said.
While countries expressed a willingness to continue working, the proposed deal itself presents no clear time line for concluding a fair ambitious and legally binding agreement in the coming months.
Over the last decade, a lack of political will has hamstrung international efforts to tackle climate change whilst the impacts in developing countries have become increasingly severe.
‘It is inconceivable that with more than 100 world leaders gathered together in one room to make a pact to solve a global problem, they have failed to commit themselves to adequate and binding obligations, said CIDSE Secretary General Bernd Nilles.
“They can call it an historical accord, a declaration, whatever they like. The reality is that leaders have failed to deliver a concrete and effective solution; they have passed up this historical opportunity to set a clear and collective pathway to a sustainable future,” Nilles added.
The networks say the blame lies squarely at the feet of developed countries. Scientific evidence and economic analysis clearly sets out what is required from industrialised nations in terms of emissions reductions and support for developing countries, and they failed to produce the goods.
"Leaders may be lagging behind, but the level of commitment shown by people from all over the world in the run up to Copenhagen has shown unequivocally that the public is firmly behind a strong climate change deal. Leaders must now set a firm deadline for coming to a comprehensive and binding agreement as soon as possible in the coming months, and we’ll be watching them every step of the way,” said Lesley Anne Knight, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis.
CIDSE and Caritas believe the world must accept nothing less than a fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement which commits developed countries to greenhouse gas emissions cuts of more than 40% by 2020 –based on 1990 levels. The alliance also wants to see wealthy nations provide $195 billion in funding by 2020 – on top of existing aid commitments - to help developing countries harness green technologies and protect themselves from the worst impacts of climate change.
