austraLasia #2574 When 'every child becomes a street child' - Port-au-Prince
ROME: 15th January 2010 -- Today is the feast of Blessed Luigi
Variara. Not all that far from Haiti in geographical terms he made
'victim' into 'virtue' and began a movement which became the first of
the 'modern' members of the Salesian Family to be recognised
officially, his Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
(HH.SS.CC).
That thought might help sustain people as we see the
tremendous operation being mounted at the moment, under the name
'Salesian', in many parts of the world, to help Haiti. Just from this
desk alone, the amount of time spent in response to yesterday's
austraLasia would stagger the mind of the reader - along with the
eventual result in financial and materiel (sic) terms, and we are mere
conduits.
Again I repeat, keep en eye on ANS which does its
best to update the situation as scarce hard facts come in - but if
there are to be hard facts, our men and women on the ground will be
providing them. And some are very 'hard' indeed. There is
no update on the 200 kids buried under the prestigious National School
of Arts and Trades which the Salesians run, and no news in this case is
unlikely to be good news, though we live in hope. We know that
the mother of two Salesians, a priest and a brother, died in the
earthquake. We have heard from the FMA Sisters that the Sisters
in the communities there - they have five or six communities in and
around P-au-P - were not harmed.
But one of the lines that hit this reader the
hardest, trawling through the stuff coming in, was this: "the
humanitarian aid organization [the reference is to the Salesians in
this instance] has its work cut out for it as all children in
Port-au-Prince are now street children". It is this reality this
is moving people and moving hearts and moving material. One
reader, all the way, would you believe, from the US Senate Building in
Washington, wrote this morning saying simply 'I was a volunteer in
Petion Ville this summer. I want to try to find out what they need and
how I can help'. We directed this person to the people who can give the
answers.
Further to yesterday's info about a bank account,
some asked for the actual bank address. Here, then, is the
complete info once again:
Citibank
238 North Ave.
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Account Number: 9959015692
Swift Number: CITIUS33
ABA Number: 021000089
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Title: australasia 2574
Subject and key words:
Date (year): 2009
ID: 2000-2099|2574
