Visit to DIVINOPOLIS, 18 February 2010

Thursday 18 February 2010

VISIT TO DIVINOPOLIS

On Saturday 6 February 2010 I paid a visit to Divinopolis, with Jacek who drove the parish car, Synara and little David.

Joaquim was waiting for us at Samaria House (La Samaritana), a fine modern building; you can see some photographs in the attached file: Synara in the waiting room (by the entrance hall) Joaquim and Janek in one of the classrooms, the multi-purpose hall and the chapel. On the level of the entrance, there are, in addition, another classroom, offices and meeting rooms. In the basement there is a large room that is used as the dining room and also where, twice a week, there is a distribution of food (11 products: rice, beans, pasta, coffee, sugar, cassava flour, oil, laundry soap, maize, salt and milk); this is provided by the municipality and is given to 35 needy families selected together with the town hall. These families receive a food parcel which they come to collect; they can also obtain clothes and shoes which have been given as gifts, toys for their children, and they can also visit the pharmacy which is located by the reception room. They are received by volunteers who serve them drinks and a meal, and this provides an opportunity for a time of evangelisation, a time of prayer and for making personal contacts. In addition these families are befriended by members of a team of twenty energetic and well trained people who visit them regularly. We were told by Joaquim that Samaria House was founded in 1998, and it was then the only the place that was helping the poorest people of Divinopolis.

Next to the large basement room there is a big kitchen which is also used for the preparation of meals for small groups, some of which, such as one from a neighbouring school, come regularly; this activity helps with the financing of the house. There are also some rooms used for storing food or other items that are given to the house, plus a room where a service offering psycho-motor education is just starting up. There are two small neighbouring buildings that are rented out as living accommodation, and these will become the property of Samaria House at the expiration of a loan agreement that was concluded three years ago with a neighbouring manufacturer. Samaria House is a privately owned organisation whose primary purpose is to be a training centre, that provides civic and religious education and teaches information technology to the students, terminating each year with a diploma award. At present there are 110 students, in eleven groups of ten. The teaching staff consists of three paid teachers plus several volunteers of high quality, that have been recruited by the information technology teacher.

The head of the school is Marcia Amaral, and her husband, Joaquim, acts are the school secretary and treasurer. I was very impressed by the professionalism of the staff and also by the amplitude of their undertaking with such limited means. And this is without counting the new projects: the modelling workshop, the psychomotor education service plus some others... The Amaral family invited us to lunch after out visit in the “casa familia sanctuario de vida” (family house and sanctuary for life), the house in which they live and which they have modified to accommodate two single people. They themselves live on the ground floor; it is a house that Joaquim has made inhabitable and which keeps on growing. The house is situated on a plot of around 19,000 m2, of which 9,000 m2 can be used for building, but this must be in such a way that the municipality will also be able to build a sports ground. There is already an existing building with a large covered hall which has been used for some years for holding training courses for young people and couples.

We are attaching a a folder of photographs which includes a plan of the plot, on which the existing buildings are shown. Joaquim also showed me a plan of the proposed projects: a community and retreat centre, a church, and several small bungalows to accommodate participants attending courses. In this way courses of a week or even of thirty days can be envisaged. In addition there is a project for a building to be used as a student hostel. The whole project now needs to be put in its final form and the cost estimated, so that a building time -table can be established. There will be an account of the visit that Daniel Rengade made to Belo Horizonte on 5 February 2010 in our next publication.

Daniel Rengade

You can read the most recent letter from Tiphaine, a JET (young volunteer) at Divinopolis, for another point of view of the situation there.