ASIA/CHINA - Making God's love visible in society: this has been the mission of the Group of volunteers of the Nan Tang parish in Beijing for 10 years

Tuesday, 11 January 2022 laity   charity   students   poverty  

Beijing (Agenzia Fides) - During the year 2021, until December 31, the Nan Tang Parish Volunteer Group of the Archdiocese of Beijing, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which was founded by the great Jesuit missionary Fr. Matteo Ricci, supported 372 university or high school students from families with financial difficulties. Twenty of them have completed their high school studies and 17 have passed the university entrance exams, despite the difficulties related to the Covid pandemic. This is the annual report published by the Group, which pursues its mission to make God's love and mercy visible in Chinese society with concrete activities and, above all, with the example of a life lived in a Christian way. The report also contains a detailed list of the assisted students, with the possibility of contacting them for those who are interested in helping them directly or in knowing more about the work of the Group.
Founded in 2011, the Group began its activities by helping the elderly and orphans; by sending material aid to areas with economic difficulties or affected by natural disasters. Later it focused on supporting the studies of children by building libraries (since 2015 it has built 9 libraries), and in 2014, offering distance adoption for students, that is, help for their studies.
In the first two years of the initiative, they helped 3,746 university or high/middle school students. Their assistance service for the elderly has also involved civil authorities.
The 10 years of life of the group are based on solid faith, constant prayer, a broad and effective collaboration between priests, religious and lay faithful, and also on good administrative capacity, with maximum transparency. The lack of means of transport and the high cost of shipping costs, at the beginning of the Group's activity, led to the creation of the team of transport volunteers. Today it is an authentic small logistics agency, with excellent financial management: by making their cars available, volunteers are able to bring aid to about fifty cities in China that are in a precarious economic situation.
Currently the Group has grown and has even reached the second generation, with the children of the first volunteers, friends from work or university volunteers, who are not necessarily Catholic. The Group is therefore a living school of Christian charity and an instrument of evangelization in today's society, as it offers spiritual and material help to those in need. (NZ) (Agenzia Fides, 11/1/2022)


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