On Friday, February 15, at the General Curia of the Brothers of St John of God in Rome, the first meeting of the new Sexennium of the St John of God Fundraising Alliance was held attended by AFMAL and Juan Ciudad ONGD, Fundaçao Sao Joao de Deus and the St. John of God Development Company, coordinated by the General Curia’s Missions and International Cooperation Office. All the NGOs, Foundations and Associations of the Order attending the meeting expressed their satisfaction with the excellent outcome of the meeting in Granada last September at which they had a greater sense of the need to work together despite the different types of structures of their associations, in order to continue doing good by helping needy people in the Global South.

The meeting revealed the need to improve the sharing of information and for each association to work more synergistically in order to channel funds better and to make it possible to work together under cofinanced projects to be able to proceed with the implementation of care projects despite this period of economic crisis.

After viewing the video of the inauguration of the meeting “Go, get up and walk”, urging people to move ahead together along their own paths, setting aside fear and never losing hope, the Director of UMICOI, Bro. Moisés Martin Boscá, first of all presented the new members of the Missions and International Cooperation Office:  Bro. Pascal Ahodegnon and Bro. Giampietro Luzzato, and then illustrated the campaign promoted by the General Curia for 2013: the construction of a community health centre at Accra-Ghana.

Bro. Jesús Etayo, the new Superior General elected at the recent General Chapter in Fatima (Portugal) also attended the meeting, and thanked all the associations for their work and expressed his pleasure with the Alliance as an excellent instrument for doing good according to the charism of St John of God, jointly with the whole of the Hospitaller Family.

The Representatives of the associations spoke in turn, reporting on the projects they had completed in 2012, and on their proposals for the present year.

The next meeting will be held in Ireland in September, and the meeting ended by summing up the work of the Alliance in the word from the Bantu language: UBUNTU. This is an invitation to support and help one another, to become aware not only of our rights but also of our duties.

“I am what I am by virtue of what all of us are."