Evangelization, school, development

Good news and beautiful images come to us from Madagascar: from the mission among the Bara – Diocese of Antsirabe, Parish of Manapa – led by Father Pascal, a Franciscan, and Father Renato Rosso, a life as a priest among the nomadic people, whom Sermig supports and supports. They tell us about a program of human growth that is developing, with simplicity and enthusiasm. The new rice fields, the new dispensary. Signs of a structural change, which is true evolution because it is lived in a community that does not lose its identity, but enriches it while its ability to do, to be, to choose for itself and its children grows. A life in which one's dignity is increasingly affirmed, and protected.
A country, Madagascar, with a very tormented colonial past, and which – even after gaining independence – has very often experienced phases of political instability, with coups d'état, uprisings, contested elections. It is still among the poorest on the continent - 75% of the inhabitants below the poverty line, 63 years life expectancy - vast but not very populated. The recurring cyclones, increasingly devastating, worsen the scenario.

The Diocese occupies an area of ​​plateaus - about 1,600 meters - and mountains in the center of the large island, the parish of Manapa is an area on the margins. The first results that are now taking shape arise from a great pastoral work and human promotion, with a strong soul and attentive to the care of the community. Everything starts from the well-founded belief that evangelization and education are the new name of sustainable development; it is therefore implemented in dozens of small rural villages in the vast territory, creating and animating, with the care of catechists and teachers, dozens of small schools and chapels. Education is the key to a renewed life for people, who can thus also benefit from the help of local agronomists to improve agriculture and livestock, improve their subsistence and even beyond. The spiritual journey offers new meanings, full and conscious; also helping to free from ancestral fears. In a remote area of ​​Manapa, Andranjomanga, reachable only on foot and with many hours of walking, a few years ago, thanks also to Don Renato, a "special mission" came to life, among the Bara people, of nomadic culture based on the breeding of zebu. With great respect for the local culture, catechists, agronomists, nurses, teachers have periodically alternated to gradually open up new perspectives for their lives. School begins, agriculture begins (and hunger disappears ...): a few years ago the valley was a large cane field, a humid expanse fed by the mountains; now orderly and productive rice fields have taken its place.

The next step is the health program, for a territory that has to face a dramatic situation. Next to the Parish of Manapa, the construction of the first small dispensary has been completed, where it will finally be possible to offer a medical service. The structure, as a clinic, and some hospital beds, was planned to have only one floor, but it was possible to add a second. It will also become a reception for the technicians who will gradually come to participate in all the development initiatives underway, and those that will be added.


Mauro Palombo
NP January 2025

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