InYgo voluntary work overseas

The Rationale

Since 2001, inYgo – the Ignatian Youth Network – has moved a few hundred young people out of Malta for three to four week stints to alternative destinations: poor neighbourhoods of Sicily, places on the European mainland where the sick assemble, Algeria, Egypt and Ethiopia. Through St Aloysius’ College Sixth Form and – in previous years – through the Junior College Chaplaincy, Jesuits working with young people had accompanied such groups to destinations in Europe for the past thirty years. The shift out of Europe occurred through a more streamlined approach to youth ministry by the Jesuits and grew out of the desire to bring the great continent of Africa in young people’s consciousness. Last summer, no less than ten Jesuits in addition to other lay leaders accompanied inYgo groups in their voluntary service abroad.

The reality of scores of young people digging deep into their pockets to be of service to people in need flies in the face of the stock image of apathy which grown-ups paste onto the younger generation. One asks whether it is some soul-caressing, feel-good factor or just a sense of adventure that motivates people in their late teens and twenties to engage in such undertakings. Our application process and the months-long preparation makes anyone considering such work only to feel good about it think twice. Participants are cautioned that they could feel very bad, not only health-wise, but also because the injustice that results in poverty is more revolting than a wicked bug lodging in a delicate stomach.

inYgo’s core principles set out the framework for the service given in such experiences:

1. The poor are our teachers. Much can be learned from listening to the poor and to their stories, as well as by meditating with them on the value of life.
2. We focus primarily on people. Whereas we work very hard and for long hours, the accent is not on short-term projects but on people: their lives, their hardship, their illness, their abilities, and the hope that carries them forward.
3. Volunteers will seek to be contemplatives in action. God is in all of this. We are moved by the belief that God is present in our world, and that God also wants to be present in and through us. Do we go about making converts? Yes – the converts are ourselves. The more we are in touch with God through the poor, the more deeply human we become.
4. We nurture a profound respect for the receiving cultures, knowing that we do not have all the answers, and stand to be enriched by our dialogue with the world-view of others.
5. Our initiatives must not create funnels of dependence, but avenues of development.

The spiritual dimension is the declared driving force. Emotion-stirring video clips can have a short-term effect on TV viewers, motivating people to donate. Whereas the funds we raise or that are entrusted to us to support works that lighten the load of the poor, inYgo’s voluntary service abroad seeks to bring global issues such as hunger, poverty, inequality, peace, justice and climate change into our daily focus and the resulting long-term action.

Take a Virtual Tour

Some initiatives serve as starters, introducing participants to direct service with persons in need. The first taste for this commitment may have been acquired through a local undertaking, such as helping in weekly activities and summer clubs for kids at the Paulo Freire Institute, Żejtun, or through similar involvement. Other groups this summer have worked in Bari and Turin, in Italy, and in the French pilgrimage destination: Lourdes

At the Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza, in Turin, the huge hospital is anything but a small house. A small group of Sixth Form and University students, led by Fr Anthony Cilia SJ, worked for two weeks in the wards. They joined Italian and other volunteers in looking after elderly and disabled persons in the wards, washing and feeding the bed-ridden, caring for the long-term residents not only by attending to their material needs but also by staying or praying at their bedside, listening to their stories, or merely holding the frail hands of frail, moribund persons.

Mano nella Mano con Gesù was a summer camp for sixty children, organised by the Missionaries of Charity on the outskirts of the southern Italian city of Bari. Seventeen Maltese and Gozitan youths, led by Ms Miriam Portelli and Anthony Mifsud SJ braved the summer heat to spend time with children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Their long days consisted of trips to the seaside, nourishing mid-day meals for the kids, creative craft work, catechism lessons and enabling the children to feel loved. There’s nothing special in the latter, it would seem, but for children who regularly witness domestic and other violence, the summer camp goes a long way to heal some of life’s hurts.

Another strong and more numerous contingent was in Lourdes, with Fr Vincent Magri SJ and Josef Briffa SJ. Lourdes is a place of pilgrimage for thousands of sick persons from all over Europe. The inYgo group conveyed countless numbers of sick and elderly pilgrims from the assembly point to bathe in the healing waters of the shrine, ensuring their safety and comfort, and providing the loving care that restores both the transporters and the transported.

Away from Europe

With no group travelling to Algeria this year, where Fr Edgar Busuttil and small groups of volunteers have annually helped in a summer project for the past six years, the remaining groups travelled to Egypt and to Ethiopia.

Now in its seventh year, the group in Egypt was by far the most numerous. Spread out in three locations, on the outskirts of Cairo, in Al Minia and in the small village of Nag ad-Dik, close to thirty young people got a first hand insight into the daily constraints of those who live on the edge. They were accompanied by Fr Jimmy Bartolo SJ, Fr Michael Bugeja SJ and Christopher Vella SJ. Al Muqattam is a sprawling garbage tip on the outskirts of Cairo, where thousands of people live by sifting through municipal waste and recycling anything from cardboard to plastic, beating scrap metal into beds, cabinets and other useful items, and carting sorted material to the scrap dealers. The air is filled with an acrid smell, from the combustion fumes emanating from the waste dump. Everyday, the volunteers joined the Missionaries of Charity who live there, to organise a summer school for tens of children whose families live on the garbage pile. The kids have a tough life, but the summer school is a welcome break: a learning opportunity that brings out extraordinary talent and vitality hidden beneath the grime imposed by poverty. In the afternoons, the young people conducted similar activities at a different centre for abandoned elderly people and orphaned children. Those working in Al Minia had their wits tested by some 200 children at a centre run by Maltese Jesuit Fr Anthony Fenech. Not too far away, in the village of Nag ad-Dik, the remaining eight youths and University chaplain Fr Jimmy Bartolo SJ, assisted the local Copt Catholic parish priest in organising a summer club for 150 children. The volunteers lived on a meagre diet, but each time they visited the poor villagers’ homes, they were treated with extraordinary hospitality. The Egyptian experience included a train trip to the Valley of the Kings in Luxor and to the renowned Mount Sinai, to do justice to the ancient and rich cultural and biblical heritage of this extraordinary land and its kind-hearted people.

Those going to Ethiopia for the first time are usually in for a surprise. Out of the heat of Malta’s August, they land in Addis Ababa, at 2500m above sea level, in the deluge of the rainy season. Ethiopia, the cradle of humanity, with a millennial history, is a most fascinating country to visit. It is where the ancestors of today’s humans most likely came from. Living there on less than one euro a day is a different story: and it is the reality of about 90% of the population.

People are generally stuck with an image of Ethiopia from the devastating famine of 1984-85. I was there at the time, but Ethiopia has moved on. Given time, given peace and given an improved political situation, the country holds great promise. Since 2001, inYgo has placed young people at the service of destitute sick and dying persons at the Mother Teresa Home in Addis Ababa. A dozen or so Missionaries of Charity host close to one thousand sick men, women and children who are brought in from the streets of the capital or referred by the same sisters of Mother Teresa from their numerous communities in the outlying regions of the country. The 2007 group, made up of university students or recent graduates, and accompanied by the Mark Cachia SJ and by me, nursed the sick and the dying, as well as those who came to the home for treatment during daytime. We dressed the wounds and sores of the bed-bound residents, fed and washed them, and reflected about their stories. Putting a face on human problems makes all the difference: one feels more encouraged to relate to a person than to daunting statistics and numbers.

In the Ethiopian capital, our group was hosted as on other occasions by the Franciscan Sisters of the Heart of Jesus, three of whom are Maltese. The sisters do an exceptional job, lovingly running Kidane Meheret Home a home for 170 orphaned children and Kidane Meheret School that is reputed to be one of the best. Kidane Meheret is a favourite Amharic title for the Virgin Mary, Covenant of Mercy. Another Maltese lady, who loves Ethiopia and its people at least as much as her native Malta, is Monica Tonna-Barthet. The sprightly 70-year old sold off all her possessions some six years ago and left for Addis Ababa. After living as a poor volunteer with the Missionaries of Charity, earlier this year she inaugurated Angels’ Children’s Home, a well-planned and beautiful house for orphaned street boys which she built with her own money. Once the house reaches its full complement, it will take twenty such children. When not at the Mother Teresa Home – where we met another dedicated group of Maltese volunteers – the young people from inYgo were investing their time and energy with the orphans in the above homes as well as supporting the work that the small Jesuit community with Catholic students in Addis Ababa University. Yet, our true centre of gravity was the daily Eucharist and the times of shared prayer.

While young people from inYgo carry out considerable fund-raising throughout the year, with the sole intent of helping the poor, the accent is placed on the long-term. Achieving a long-term response does not come about by throwing money at a need – it’s about throwing ourselves at it, too. We realise that money is only a part of the picture. The vision is enhanced by giving one’s time, stopping to pray, questioning our lifestyles and patterns of consumption, advocacy, and the belief that our world can improve, through one person at a time.

Joseph Cassar SJ