Programs for 246 women and 380 children
The Garden Project was started through collaboration with the Center for Action and Contemplation.. It involves 24 women and their families. The are provided a 4'x6' garden box, soil and seeds and they can grow food year round. Inaddition to learning about the practical, hands on approaches to gardening, they are participating in workshops on eco-spirituality. Their desire is to become earth promoters in the community.
Valores, Fe y Vida continues to the base of the women's programming at Centro Santa Catalina, offering space for reflection and deep spiritual growth. The four groups total 110 women and all of the families that participate in the Garden Project are from this group of women.
Women who have graduated from Valores, Fe, y Vida are involved in a new Family Systems Course which includes private counseling. We are grateful to the instructors Louise Raseo and Ada Luisa Trijo.
The sewing group, Cooperative Las Mujeres de Esperanza y Fe, is working to achieve their goal of saving $4000 so they will not need money from the Center's operating budget or grants.
The Homework Help Program is for grades 1-6 whose mothers attend Valores, Fe y Vida. A small scholarship (beca) of $25 is also provided to help their parents defray the cost of attending public school. A group of 38 teens are enjoying a Youth Group led by two social work students from the University of Juarez.
Other programs offered include: Spanish Literacy, English as a Second Language, Friday Prayer, the Visitor's Program and on-going Leadership Developement and Education for the Leadership Team.
Reflections
Greetings to the many friend and family of Centro Santa Catallina! I have had the opportunity and the privilege to walk with the Center since 1999. My heart and my commitment to the center will always lie in the relationships and the stories the women share of their lives and their children's lives. They continue to humble me, challenge me and of course inspire me.
This advent season, a season so full of hope, I invite you to find time to sit with this newsletter, to read the words especially those of Saira and her life. (Please go to "Our Story" on this site.) Allow this story to inspire you as well. While all the women carry their own story full of twits and turns and heartaches and joys, there are undoubtedly similar currents running through these women's lives. So often they speak of coming to now Centro Santa Catalina while simultaneously coming to know themselves and the value they have for themselves as women of faith and women of dignity.
I am grateful for the many ways that I have been invited into the heart of this Center and I extend that same gratitude to those of you who keep Cnetro Santa Catalina close to your heart.
Kirstin Maanum, Board Member
A Testimony of a dDream Come True
by Dr. San Juana M. Mendoza Bruce
In the early 90's, I had the blessing to meet two gifted ladies, Sister Donna and Sister Ellie, from the Domincan Mother House in Adrian Michigan. They were compelled by their spiritual calling to minister to women of the border.
In those days I was the medical needs of Lomas de Morelos and Panfilo Natera, two very impoverished and marginalized colonials in the outskirts of the city of Juarez. These communities were founded on top the land fill -originally the city dump. Most of my patients worked as rag pickers, rummaging for any kind of recycling materials (glass, bone, metals, plastic, cardboard, pallets, house ware items, etc.) Their average income was about $48 -50 US dollars per week. Many of the workers ate food and wore clothing gleaned from the garbage.
My practice as a general practitioner was a very humble effort addressed to primary care, first aid, and preventive medicine. The needs and suffering of the families exceeded our efforts to help them.
My helplessness and pain was indescribable when I witnessed babies dying from curable conditions, women and children being abused, a vulnerable population being deprived of one of the most basic rights....the right to think and have productive work. The women were twice oppressed by their cultural traditions and by the social-economical system that denied them opportunities to get educated, better living conditions, running water and medical care.
So when Sister Donna and Sister Ellie told me that they wanted to support my efforts and asked me how they could best to help this community, I immediately pleaded with them to please have mercy for the women and children that exist in this area without hope. I told them the women lacked job skills, knowledge about moral values and a sense of discipline and self esteem that produce a life style of chronic suffering, premature aging and unhappiness. I asked them to please walk with the women, teach them ways to have a better life, help them to take pride in themselves and their families and acquire work skills to improve their existence.
Through my journey with the poorest of the poor I have learned that among them you can find talent, many virtues of the holy spirit, braveness and a thirst to grow spiritually if you offer them opportunities and a solidarious hand.
Since that encounter, the Sisters have walked with the women, created a center for education for their children and themselves, started a sewing cooperative, ESL classes, spiritual growth and gave the women and their families hope of a better future.
I am very grateful to God that through His grace, Sister Donna and Sister Maureen have become servants in this community. In spite of the long path ahead, they have the direction of clear goals and the light house of their faith and values to guide them. Centro Santa Catalina has marked a new era and showed the women that they deserve a better life and they could work together to make it happen. They know that God walks with them even in the hardest or saddest moments of their lives.
May divine providence allow a long life to the mission that shines like a fresh and robust cactus flower in the middle of the old garbage dump in Juarez.
Written by Dr. San Juana Mendoza
A missionary doctor on the border of Juarez, Mexico
Centro Santa Catalina Board Member
