As a lay missioner in Latin America for the last 35 years, I would like to thank the Mission Fund for forwarding the sum of €2,000 towards the work I have at hand.

After 21 years working in Peru, I have been working in Bogotá, Colombia since 2000.

One of the projects I am working on is called The New Horizon, where we teach a group of women different arts and crafts so that, in the future, they can set up cooperatives and thus have a means of making a living.

The other is giving a group of young girls in our parish psychological, educational, spiritual and material help. This takes them off the streets where they would otherwise roam about begging for food and so on. I am also now trying to help people who, due to the bad state of social services in this country, cannot get the medicine they require from the government and neither can they afford to buy it. I study each case of the many I come across and try to help as best I can.

One of these cases is that of a 33-year-old woman who, after having finished her studies to become a nurse, went into the jungle for a period of practice and caught a virus that has paralysed the right side of her body. She is in a lot of pain but, unfortunately, national insurance does not cover most of her medicine, nor her therapy.

Thanks to the generosity of the Maltese, Yaneth and others can feel a bit better and I therefore want to encourage more people to keep on sending used stamps and telecards to the Malta Mission Fund (www.missionfund.org.mt).

I am sure that God will surely reward this kindness.