Reflection: Mission is Life, Our Life
Two Comboni Lay Missionaries share with us their experience in Peru. “There is nothing that cannot be given, shared with all those who walk side by side with us.” The scenery reflects the grandiosity of our interior, the grandiosity of the little miracles of which we are only spectators, as being the grain planted in […]
Kenya: The Challenge of Reinsertion in Society
Kamiti penitentiary in the outskirts of Nairobi hosts more than 4,200 detainees. The Consolata Missionary Sisters are committed to a programme of training for the young prisoners. Standing in front of the main entrance to Kamiti penitentiary, the visitor has no idea of what lies behind the barrier of poles, wire nets, walls topped with […]
Brazil: After Mine Dam Collapse, We Cry With Mother Earth
On January 25, 2019, a massive mining dam collapsed in north central Brazil, devastating the nearby community of Brumandinho. Dozens are confirmed dead and hundreds are missing—and the numbers continue to grow. The dam was 280 feet high and nearly a half-mile wide. This tragedy could have been avoided. The company responsible for this disaster, […]
The Limpopo River: Collateral Victim of the Mining Industry
The Limpopo River Basin is a fragile environment threatened by the combined pressure, of climate change, urban waste disposal and mining activities. The sluggish waters of the Limpopo, called Espiritu Santo River by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498 and much later the “great grey-green, greasy Limpopo» by Rudyard Kipling, flow from South […]
Herbs & Plants: Cassava, one of the major staple foods
Manihot esculenta, commonly called cassava (Family Euphorbiaceae) is one of the most important and widely cultivated tropical food crops. It is a semi-woody perennial shrub growing to an average of up to 3 metres high; having single to few stems, sparingly branching. Cassava is the third largest source of food carbohydrates in the tropics, after […]
Israel: The best-known lake in the Gospels is drying up
Lake Tiberias where, according to the Gospels, Jesus walked on the water: Israel is trying to fill it with desalinated sea water. In Israel the situation of Lake Tiberias grows ever more critical, the lake upon which (according to the Gospel accounts) Jesus walked. It is drying up due to a five-year drought in Israel, […]
Love for the People and Passion for the Gospel
In 2018, 40 missionaries were killed in the world, 17 more, almost double, compared to 23 in 2017. Among them 35 were priests, one seminarian and four lay people. After eight consecutive years in which the highest number of missionaries killed was in America, in 2018 Africa had the primacy of the bloodshed: 19 priests, […]
Church asylum: commitment to a humanitarian state of affairs
It is an ancient pre-Christian and early Christian tradition to grant asylum to refugees in holy places. In Europe, this tradition was revived by the Charter of Groningen, passed in 1987 by religious communities and grass-roots church initiatives. It says: “When we have good reason to assume that a refugee or asylum seeker, threatened with […]
The Niger River of all challenges: from drought to floods and pollution
The Niger River is the main source of life of large parts of West Africa. But owing to climate change and human activities, riparian populations face growing challenges. Sailing down the Niger River from the Fouta Djalon Mountains of Guinea to the sands of Timbuktu, the pearl of the desert and to the mangroves of […]
Shared Electrical Mobility
Asia is exporting the Tuk Tuk, tricycles, to Africa. Now for the electrical version. Growing urbanisation and increasing pollution in African cities demand a new approach capable of providing transport systems that are clean and cost effective. In order to understand how to respond to this problem creatively, it is useful to analyse the solutions […]
