Nun strives to raise awareness of missionary work

Sister Pauline Farrugia of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, Ta' Nuzzo, is working hard to set up a Missions Group to increase awareness of missionary work and encourage volunteers to support the useful input by members of her congregation.

A clinic, opened some years ago to care for the poor inhabitants at Mpektoni in Lamu District in Kenya, is now being developed into a health centre and plans are also in hand to open a secondary school in Kenya, she said.

Sr Pauline is back in Malta after spending 22 years doing missionary work in Kenya. In her work, Sr Pauline, as well as three other Maltese nuns, are given sterling support by the SHARE Foundation, whose director is Prof. John Rizzo Naudi.

The group of nuns working with Sr Pauline includes her sister, Sr Marianne, who is also a member of the congregation. They are helped by local nuns and volunteers.

Sr Pauline is now working as missionary coordinator and her duty involves finding volunteers willing to help in the missionary work of the congregation, which this year is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Sr Pauline, 54, formerly of Hamrun, was among the first from her congregation to do missionary work in Kenya in 1980.

She recalled that the only medical facility for the people in Mpektoni was a mobile clinic run by the Church.

The population in the area where Sr Pauline worked is close to 40,000 and people still live in huts.

Sr Pauline said the SHARE Foundation was supporting the sisters in their efforts to open an operating theatre as part of the health centre. Equipment has been bought to equip a laboratory but more money is needed for the project.

Support is also being given to the nuns to enable them to continue taking care of children of single mothers, most of whom are prostitutes. The sisters run two orphanages.

One of the orphanages cares for about 30 children, some of them as young as three, whose parents had died of Aids.

The nuns are running a scheme through which people can sponsor one of the children by donating Lm4 per month to provide for their education or Lm5 per month for education and food. The children will correspond with their sponsors especially during Christmas and Easter.

Sr Pauline said that although the needs were great, they often received encouraging support. A case in point was money derived from concerts by the Voices choir.

Some Maltese contractors, she said, were willing to offer the opportunity to some of their workers to go Kenya on voluntary work to help the nuns in their projects.

Volunteers doing missionary work had to pay for their air tickets but they can seek sponsors. A group of volunteers is expected to leave for Kenya in March.

The congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart was set up in 1903 by Sr Maria Theresa Nuzzo and today, besides various homes in Malta, its members are engaged in missionary work in various parts of the world including India, Libya and Tunisia. The nuns are planning to open their first school in South Korea.

Anyone wishing to help Sr Pauline in her work can contact her at the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, St Therese Convent, 100 Gorg Borg Olivier Street, Mellieha (tel. 21523532).

The congregation is organising a special vocal and musical concert in support of their missionary project in Kenya with the support of the Sliema Philharmonic Society in the Sir Temi Zammit auditorium of the University, Tal-Qroqq on February 1 at 7 p.m.

Taking part will be singers Julie Zahra, Ludwig Galea and Olivia Lewis, together with the youth band of the Sliema Philharmonic Society.

Clarinettist Lesley Tabone will also take part.

A Lm2 donation for each ticket is being requested to go towards the Kenya school project.