Calling young adults interested in missionary work
Catholic Spirit, June 2010, In Our World
By Michele Chan Santos
Correspondent
VIDES+USA is a program where young adults, ages 18 to 35 and up, are trained and then sent to do missionary work. The missionary work focuses on the promotion and education of youth and women in poverty and difficult situations.
VIDES, which stands for Volunteers in Development, Education and Solidarity, was established and is run by the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, also known as the Salesian Sisters. The program recruits, prepares and places volunteers in Salesian Missions around the world. VIDES+USA is the American branch of VIDES International, which is a non-government organization in special consultative status with the United Nations.
The young adult volunteers engage in teaching, youth ministry, community outreach, religious education, hunger relief, health care and many other types of work. They serve in Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Sudan, Rwanda, South Africa, Costa Rica and other countries –– and some do mission work in the U.S.
The director of VIDES+USA is Salesian Sister Mary Gloria Mar. She offices in a building behind Cristo Rey Parish in Austin. The former VIDES+USA office was in San Antonio, but when Conventual Franciscan Father Jayme Mathias, the pastor of Cristo Rey, offered space at his parish, the VIDES staff moved to Austin in September 2009.
Although volunteers for VIDES+USA come from all over the U.S., many come from the Austin Diocese, and especially from the University of Texas and Texas A&M University. Most of the VIDES volunteers are recent college graduates, but some are at other points in their lives, Sister Mar said.
No matter where they come from, the volunteers share an idealism and faith in the missionary work of VIDES, she said. Their mission trips can be one to three months, or four to seven months, or eight months to two years in length. Many volunteers have completed more than one mission.
Molly Fohn is from San Antonio and graduated from the University of Texas. She completed several missions for VIDES: in El Salvador from March to June 2008, in Honduras from June 2008 to July of 2009, back to El Salvador until December 2009, and then in Haiti from January to the end of February of this year.
In El Salvador, Fohn worked at a home for at-risk girls. In Honduras she served at a boarding school for girls. In Haiti, she helped at camps for people who lost their homes in the devastating earthquake.
She encouraged others to volunteer for VIDES: “Go for it, it’s a great experience,” Fohn said. “Don’t be scared away by living with nuns or not knowing the language. It’s worth the learning experience.”
Fohn learned Spanish during her mission trips and said she is most grateful for the opportunity to get to know the people of El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti.
“The people that I worked with and saw on a daily basis just really enriched the experience,” she said.
“I would just really encourage people to take the leap and do it,” Fohn said. “It makes you come away with a completely new perspective. It’s impossible to go back to be the person you were –– and you don’t want to.”
In Haiti, the Salesian Sisters had six schools, which were all destroyed by the earthquake and now must be rebuilt. This passage is taken from an essay Fohn wrote after she returned from her mission work in Port-au-Prince, Haiti:
“Two days in, I met 15-year-old Sandra. She was trapped for eight days in the rubble of her school, already mourned for as though dead and received by her family with such suspicion after she was pulled out, it was as if she was just an illusion ... When we moved Sandra to a different hospital for therapy, we brought with us some donations we couldn’t use, mostly medical equipment,” Fohn said. “By the time I had to leave, I left with a sense of peace, but with such a love for Haiti’s people that I can’t forget them or their needs.”
Volunteer missionaries go through several steps when working through the VIDES program, Sister Mar said. They apply, and once they are accepted they go to a Formation Service Camp, where they undergo spiritual and practical training (last winter’s formation camp was in Austin). Next, they go on a mission. Upon completing their mission, they go to a re-entry workshop, to share their story and work on living the VIDES legacy of service here at home, Sister Mar said.
VIDES volunteers also participate in United Nations conferences. Allison Skinner, a former mission volunteer and now the VIDES+USA administrative assistant in Austin, attended the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York in March. Specific women’s issues included poverty, education, health and human rights.
Sister Mar wants the Catholics in the Diocese of Austin to be familiar with the VIDES+USA program. There are three ways Catholics can help the Salesian Sisters and the volunteer missionaries of VIDES, she said.
The first way is by praying for the volunteers. The second way is by telling young adults about the program if they are looking for a service opportunity, she said. The third way is by financially supporting the VIDES+USA program.
For more information about VIDES+USA or information about applying to be a mission volunteer, visit
www.vides.us. Sister Mary Gloria Mar can be reached vial e-mail at director@vides.us.
To donate to support the volunteers in their missions, visit www.vides.us/donate.html or send donations to VIDES+USA , c/o Sister Mary Gloria Mar, 2109 E. Second St., Austin 78702.