Projects

For years Pope Francis and the Iraqi Church have asked us for solidarity with our Iraqi Christian brothers and sisters, who have suffered the harsh persecution of Isis and have lost everything. In 2014 Asia News brought about the "Adopt a Christian from Mosul" campaign to stay close to them.  This movement has made it possible to meet the daily needs of Iraqi refugees who fled Mosul and the Nineveh Plains. Many of them still live in Kurdistan and cannot return to their homes. The local Church is caring for their social reintegration, which is difficult in a country that struggles to find peace and economic development amidst the Islamic State. Asia News invites readers and friends to continue supporting the "Adopt a Christian from Mosul" campaign to keep close our brothers and sisters who have suffered so much. 

PIME Missionary Fr. Raul Bonte Có works in the Amazon in Brazil.  His parish, Our Lady of Navigators, is located at the mouth of the Amazon river among hundreds of islands.  The parish encompasses about 20,000 people in 121 villages and the riverbanks are populated with shacks of the people who are just getting by. Descended from the ancient inhabitants of this region with a past of almost slavery-like conditions at the hands of large traders, more recently the people created popular movements to reclaim their lands.  Fr. Raul explains that in this remote and harsh environment, they must go out and meet the people where they are and not wait for them to come to Church.  For this purpose, Fr. Raul requested assistance for $16,512 from the PIME USA Mission Center to support the annual pastoral outreach done by their community coordinators.  Can you help bring Christ to those most in need along the Amazon?  

PIME AsiaNews has launched a campaign to help families dealing with the toll of heavy monsoon rains that hit most of Pakistan recently and is still getting worse by the hour. Almost 70 percent of the country is struggling with the calamity. More than 1,200 people have lost their lives so far – thousands have been injured, more than 800,000 livestock have been washed away and a million homes have been destroyed. Such a picture of widespread devastation cannot leave AsiaNews indifferent. We have decided to expand the Pakistan fund – our active campaign in support of workers at Pakistani brick factories – in order to help the victims of the country’s latest calamity. 

Fr. Fabio Favata has been a PIME Missionary in Hong Kong, China, since 2006.  One of the needs he noticed in his mission was for the migrant inmates of Lo Wu prison.  Because the prisoners are migrants from other countries such as Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, they don’t receive visitors and can’t get needed clothes, toiletries, phone cards, and paper or stamps for writing letters. So Fr. Fabio and several PIME priests began a ministry to assist these migrants.  $5,556 will help Fr. Fabio and his fellow PIME priests make regular visits to the prison and provide the basic necessities to 100 inmates. Can you help Fr. Fabio bring the mercy of Christ to those most in need in Lo Wu prison?

PIME Missionary Fr. Paolo Ballan works in the Suihari Mission in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, a Christian community in a mainly Muslim area. His rural mission includes 48 villages and has about 4,800 parishioners. Most of the people in Suihari are of the ethnic Santal group or other ethnic tribes (Oraon, Mahali, Bormon). Fr. Paolo saw a great need for strengthening the catechists of his mission villages. With proper training and materials, they can assist and support area youth through their pastoral work. Many youth leave their villages for work or school so those that remain are often the weakest academically or otherwise disadvantaged. To respond to this need, Fr. Paolo created a 3-year project for strengthening and training catechists that requires $16,241 annually. Your assistance for this project will support the catechists in Suihari, helping them uplift the youth of Dinajpur.

PIME Missionary Fr. Danilo Fenaroli works in the Far North region of Cameroon in Africa, where water is a scarce and precious resource. In this region, water determines every aspect of life from agricultural production and health to development and productivity. Without a stable source of water, agriculture and livestock production depends on rainfall, which is seasonal and unreliable with no source for irrigation.  At certain times, rivers also dry up forcing women and children to travel great distances to obtain water of poor quality that impacts their health through parasites, infection, and disease; it is also highly time-consuming and unproductive. Lack of rainfall can lead to food shortages also impacting health.  To all of this, the threat of terrorism is added from the Boko Haram sect that spread fear and crisis in this area. In 2022, the PIME US Mission Center and its supporters funded 3 wells for $31,989 with Fr. Danilo. The wells were in the villages of Zarmazougui, Ligasang, and Mobono and over 3,000 residents benefited.  In 2023, Fr. Danilo made a new request to the PIME US Mission Center for three additional wells in three different villages in need: Moudawa, Zouzoui, and Mahai.  Each well now costs $11,527 and will bring the same benefits to over 4,900 people.  Can you help Fr. Danilo provide the most basic of needs to the people?

In 1995, the St. Joseph Center in Phrae, Thailand, was created in collaboration with PIME volunteers and missionaries. The Center works to ensure reception, support, and education for children and young people with disabilities to make them as autonomous and integrated into society as possible. Children from different areas of the province of Phrae and the surrounding provinces are hosted at the facility for activities that include school integration and/or accompaniment, physical therapy, music, English language, and recreation.  Home rehabilitation services are also offered.  PIME Missionary Fr. Maurizio Arioldi works with the children at the St. Joseph Center and let us know about a recent flood that damaged a building the children use as an education laboratory.  After inspection of the damage, he was informed the building doesn’t have a stable foundation and is at risk of collapsing.  He turned to the PIME Mission Center for help to make the repairs for $5,752 USD.  Your assistance can help Fr. Maurizio ensure that these disabled children in Thailand continue to have a safe place for their education and integration into society.

The city of Tozeur, Tunisia is located on the border with the Sahara Desert. Since 1990, it had centered its local economy on tourists flocking to the famous desert. In 2011, this business stream was brought to an abrupt halt, permanently and negatively affecting the people of this area. The unemployment rate in the Tozeur region is the highest in Tunisia, with young people now being particularly impacted. Just north of the city of Tozeur, in the Rass Edhraa District, there is a high concentration of young people growing up with few prospects of future employment opportunities. According to national statistics, more than 100,000 students drop out of the school system each year. The NGO New Humanity has partnered with a local educational support center to welcome 150 students per year and provide them with multidisciplinary educational and vocational activities.  PIME Brother Massimo Cattaneo is seeking $16,667 to support the scope of this program, aimed at keeping youth in school and off the streets. Assistance will also ensure proper resources for the kids welcomed into this program. Will you give the young people of the Rass Edhraa District the opportunity for a brighter future?

The economic crisis in Lebanon is putting the education system and the 100-year-old network of 330 Catholic schools at risk. In addition to providing an excellent educational (1 Lebanese child out of 5 studies in these schools), they are privileged meeting places for young Christians and Muslims removed from the sectarian tendencies that today are threatening the Land of Cedars. Operating costs, teachers' salaries, the rise in prices due to inflation, and the loss of their currency’s purchasing power are exhausting school resources and they are unable to bear the costs. For the first time, the problem of "early dropouts" has emerged strongly, fueled by two years of closures and distance learning linked to Covid-19. In response to this educational emergency at this difficult moment for Lebanon, PIME Asia News is launching a campaign to support Catholic schools and the education of Lebanese, Christian, and Muslim youth.

While COVID-19 spread throughout the world in 2020, the people of Myanmar suffered doubly from a civil emergency of the military coup that took place in February of 2021.  Within this humanitarian crisis and amid this unspeakable distress, PIME’s assistance to Myanmar was urgently needed and PIME USA supporters responded by providing over $89,000 USD in assistance to Myanmar since August of 2021.  While in 2022 the situation seemed to be improving, our missionaries are reporting that in 2023, the situation in Loikaw and in many other regions of the nation has deteriorated terribly. The suffering of the people has worsened, especially for those in Chin, northern Shan, Kachin, Sagaing, and Kayah State. Many in these areas are fleeing from the conflicts, which means families leave their homes and villages looking for safety wherever they can find it.  In July 2023, our missionaries tried to see our project missions to provide updates, but they couldn’t meet all of them due to safety concerns and transportation difficulties. Everything has become much more difficult. Then on November 11, 2023, shockingly, the military took over a church compound in Loikaw. Together with the displaced people (who were staying in the Church compound), the Bishop, Priests, and Sisters had to leave the Diocesan center and flee to find refuge with the people. All the people who lived in Loikaw also fled. Every day, there is fighting in the town, and many of our poor people have lost their houses and buildings because of the bombs that are dropped by the military.  The public market was burned on December 10, 2023, and all that now remains in its place is ash. At present, Loikaw – the city of Kayah State - has become a war zone. At the end of 2023, the contact of our missionaries with friends and colleagues became very difficult because of internet cuts, blackouts, lack of electricity, petrol, and many other things. Still, our missionaries have managed to keep in touch with some people, priests, and sisters, and so far all are safe though they are in a dangerous situation.  We thank our PIME USA supporters for the assistance that continues to bring light to this darkness by providing funds that house the displaced, feed the hungry, and provide essential medical care. We turn to our friends to assist our brothers and sisters in Myanmar in their time of need. Can you continue to help bring Christ’s light to the darkness for the people of Myanmar who find themselves in this dire situation?  

The Far North region of Cameroon in Africa, as well as parts of neighboring Chad, has some of the harshest and poorest conditions on the continent. In 1997, PIME Missionary Fr. Danilo Fenaroli established the Bethlehem Foundation to assist the people in this region. The Crèche was established as a vital part of the Foundation in 2002 to care for the youngest and most vulnerable. The Crèche welcomes and cares for orphaned babies and children, hosts sick children, and provides food to malnourished children 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Aside from nurses and aides, The Crèche also has social workers who keep in touch with the families of the babies to return them to their relatives or extended families at the age of 2 or 3. Francesca Bellotta is a PIME Lay Missionary working in The Crèche. She tells us how every day is a challenge to keep the children healthy and well-fed. PIME USA donors purchased powdered milk for feeding the babies at The Crèche in the fall of 2021. Now Francesca has asked the PIME Mission Center for additional support from 2023-2025 of $23,500 annually for the ongoing nutritional needs so these little ones can start life with a head start. Can you help the most precious and vulnerable in need of basic sustenance?

The Bibemi Medical Dispensary is a health center that distributes medications in rural areas that do not have access to hospitals or other healthcare services. The Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate (PIME Sisters) manage the dispensary, which is located in the interior of the North of Cameroon. The closest city, Garoua, is 50 miles away, making the dispensary in Bibemi the only healthcare option for a geographically isolated agricultural population. Many here do not eat if the harvest is bad, and they can never afford the necessary medical treatments - which are often provided only at exorbitant, Western prices. Eye diseases are especially prevalent in Africa due to excessive sun exposure, a common problem for farmers and other day laborers. Recent studies have shown that glaucoma - a disease that eventually leads to blindness - affects Africans more than any other population in the world.  Sr. Vinija Nirrapel, MDI, of the Bibemi Medical Dispensary needs $13,182 to purchase a tonometer, a device to measure eye pressure for comprehensive eye examinations. These examinations will help to prevent premature blindness and provide proper eye care to the people of this area. Will you help Sr. Vinija equip the Bibemi Medical Dispensary and prevent blindness for these vulnerable people?

After the country’s independence in 1960, the capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé, experienced a huge expansion that included the arrival of people of different ethnicities from all over the country. Today the city of over 4 million has the problems of a large city such as overpopulation, uncontrolled expansion of poor neighborhoods lacking infrastructure, distinct class lines, unchecked influx of people coming from rural areas, and immigrants coming in from over the border. The parish of Ntem-a-si, where the PIME missionaries began their pastoral work in November 2005, is also one of the very poor neighborhoods of the capital. This is where PIME Missionary Fr. Fabio Bianchi works and lives among the people bringing Christ closer to them. Located on the slopes of a hill, this large district is mainly made up of dilapidated houses of both wood and earth. Unemployment, a poor standard of living, and lack of access to healthcare in this area are especially high for the most vulnerable, that is, women and children. In addition, infant mortality remains high and malaria is ever-present.  In 2022-2023, Fr. Bianchi completed a project for the healthcare needs of the women and children of his mission with the PIME U.S. Mission Center.  He was grateful to our PIME U.S. donors who supported this one-year project through PIME’s MDP Medical Fund with funding of $15,900. In 2024, Fr. Bianchi once again requested the help of the U.S. PIME Mission Center and its supporters to help fund the annual healthcare needs for the vulnerable.  Working together with the skilled personnel of the PIME Sisters dispensary in Yaoundé and with your help, Fr. Bianchi will continue to help the vulnerable poor of his mission to have access to healthcare in 2024 - 2025.  Your support for this project brings the healing touch of Christ to the women and children in need in Yaoundé.

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world with an extremely precarious national healthcare system. Public institutions are becoming more and more private, excluding the weakest segments of the population. The consequence is that healthcare is a privilege of the few while most of the population is excluded from the most basic services. PIME’s missionaries in Bangladesh have operated the Assistance Center for the Sick for years, recently moving it within the compound of the PIME House in Dhaka.  In 2022 they took care of over 1,000 patients and hope to increase the care they provide each year.  The PIME Missionaries in Bangladesh needs annual support of $8,138 to help poor patients with their health options locally or at central hospitals, including expensive procedures and testing. Can you help provide basic care for the vulnerable and sick in Dhaka?

Radio Sol Mansi (RSM) is a Catholic radio station in Guinea-Bissau, Africa, founded by PIME Missionary Fr. Davide Sciocco in 2001.  What began as a community radio station in Mansoa has grown and is currently heard by many Catholics and those of other religions, especially Muslims, across the country, even in remote areas. From the beginning, Radio Sol Mansi has often been the "first missionary" arriving in the homes and villages of many Guineans. Aside from social outreach, music, and sports, the station’s news is considered one of the most reliable in the nation. Its programming also includes education on human rights, women's issues, children's rights, health, protection of the environment, drug use prevention, juvenile delinquency, peace education, as well as religion. Education for peace and the development of interreligious dialogue is fundamental to RSM.    Fr. Davide is in need of support for Radio Sol Mansi for $12,043 to help them implement human trafficking and drug use prevention programs as well as to provide some much-needed equipment.  Your support of this project will help Radio Sol Mansi promote the mission of Catholic radio through peace and interreligious dialogue throughout Guinea-Bissau.

PIME Sister Chiara Colombo works in Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea at a hostel for girls opened there in 2010. The sisters help guide the girls, providing them with formation and support as they attend school away from their families. As the country's capital, Port Moresby has some big city problems including overcrowding, poverty, unemployment, and increased crime. Recently the hostel was the object of small acts of incursion by outsiders who broke through their fence. Not only did this threaten the security of the sisters and girls, but it damaged the fence itself. In addition, the street that overlooks the entrance to the hostel becomes unsafe at night and the sisters need to increase their security and that of the girls they watch over. So Sr. Chiara turned to the PIME U.S. Mission Center and its supporters to help by providing $6,667 USD to assist in replacing and building up the perimeter fence to keep all of them safe inside. Your help for this project will bring safety to the sisters and girls in Port Moresby so they may continue their path in following their formation in Christ.

PIME Missionary Fr. Suresh Kumar Dowluri, or Fr. Bosco as he is known, is the pastor of Our Lady of the Angels Parish in the southern outskirts of São Paulo.  The area around Our Lady of the Angels is occupied by ever-growing slums or “favelas” with many living in extreme poverty without sewage, water, or electricity. Early in 2023, Fr. Bosco asked the PIME Mission Center for help in providing food baskets to the needy of his parish.  Thanks to your direct contributions and through the support of our 2023 Tastes of Italy event,  $7,778 was raised for Fr. Bosco to purchase basic necessities and deliver food baskets to the poor in the favelas.  In October 2023, Fr. Bosco completed the project delivering food baskets to a total of 552 families, rotating the selection over 8 months so that everyone in the parish could receive food. Fr. Bosco and the community of Our Lady of the Angels thank all their PIME U.S. supporters who helped in this act of charity, love, and sharing.   In addition, Fr. Bosco has requested further assistance of $10,000 to continue food deliveries for Christmas in 2023 through Easter of 2024.  He also will increase the number of families helped during these important holidays. Your support for this ministry will be a blessing to the neediest among us during the holidays.  

PIME has been working in Northeastern Bangladesh in the Diocese of Dinajpur for almost 170 years, and PIME Missionary Fr. Fabrizio Calegari has worked in the country for the past 28. Aside from the duties of his mission, he began to work with the Diocesan Youth Commission two years ago. This is a vital role among the mostly poor tribal people of this rural region who are often discriminated against. In addition, the Christian community in this area is scattered in many different villages and formation can at times be lacking. Fr. Fabrizio recognized the great need to strengthen the identity of his community, especially for their youth. He created a 3-year program supported by the PIME U.S. Mission Center to accompany area youth from 16 years old through university. Each year his project requires assistance of $12,982 for human, Christian, and social outreach which includes training, health information, games, celebrations, a magazine, and a Facebook page. They publish around 1,700 copies of the bi-monthly magazine, “We Together”, which includes profiles of local religious, stories of youth and how they overcame obstacles to be successful, gospel passages, comics, advice of relationships, and more. Your support for this project will help these young people to become well-rounded, supported individuals with a clear identity and a brighter future through 2025 and beyond.   

Sr. Benedetta Nya Moe is one of the Sisters of Charity of the Maria Bambina Congregation in Hsipaw in the Lashio Diocese, Myanmar.  The Sisters of Charity here have been serving the education of disadvantaged children in this rural area for many years. Every year the number of children is growing in their boarding school for girls. It is the only place where girls from this area are welcomed and assisted. With limited space and a growing number of students, Sr. Benedetta needs to improve the kitchen in the convent compound, which is in disrepair and unsafe.  Sister is requesting $7,778 from the PIME Mission Center to complete the kitchen renovation project.  Your support for this project will help Sr. Benedetta and the sisters better serve the girls in their care in rural Hsipaw, Myanmar. 

The MDP Medical Fund exclusively supports medical needs in PIME’s missions.  These needs vary from assisting those suffering with Hansen’s disease (leprosy), AIDs/HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, malnutrition, to providing hospital equipment, medical clinics and many other medical needs the poor face worldwide. The MDP Medical Fund highlights the mercy and healing of Jesus’ words to the sick, the oppressed and the poor: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).  In these words Pope Francis tells us that “they depend entirely on God and, beneath the burden of their trials, stand in need of his healing. Jesus does not make demands of those who endure situations of frailty, suffering and weakness, but offers his mercy and his comforting presence. He looks upon a wounded humanity with eyes that gaze into the heart of each person. That gaze is not one of indifference; rather, it embraces people in their entirety, each person in his or her health condition, discarding no one, but rather inviting everyone to share in his life and to experience his tender love.” We thank all those able to contribute to this fund on a one-time or continued basis.  Through this medical support we thank you for looking into the heart of each person, discarding no one, and sharing the comforting presence of Jesus’ love with others.

Sr. Roberta Pignone is a Missionary Sister of the Immaculate (PIME Sister) and a medical doctor. She works amid the poor in the slums of the Diocese of Khulna in Bangladesh treating those who come seeking help, especially those with leprosy and TB. In addition to a small 33-bed hospital, 3 clinics, and 15 TB control centers, the work of Sr. Roberta involves intensive outreach efforts crisscrossing the streets of Khulna to educate the people and treat the suffering.  On the streets, the sisters show photos of the conditions and bring awareness of these diseases to all. In 2021 and 2022, PIME USA supporters helped Sr. Roberta stock a new dispensary with medications for her TB and leprosy patients, helping her to raise the amount that was so desperately needed. Sister Roberta and especially her patients are grateful to their PIME USA supporters for this life-saving help. Sister Roberta’s dispensaries will continue to need annual support of $11,000 for three years through 2025 in order to maintain this vital assistance to the most vulnerable.   The PIME sisters in Bangladesh bring healing, hope, and love to the suffering in some of the most deprived areas of the country. Can you help Sr. Roberta provide healing and bring the mercy of Christ to the sick? 

The MDP general project fund supports all kinds of mission projects in any of the countries where PIME is present. This fund assists projects for Social Development (agriculture, water, equipment, etc.), Education and Training (educational tools, educational expenses, schools, etc.), Health & Medical (medications, medical equipment, hospitals, etc.), Emergency Disaster Aid, Pastoral (chapel repairs, chapel needs, Catechism, etc.), among others. In his message for World Mission Sunday in 2019, Pope Francis reminded us, “The Church is on mission in the world. Faith in Jesus Christ enables us to see all things in their proper perspective, as we view the world with God’s own eyes and heart. Hope opens us up to the eternal horizons of the divine life that we share. Charity, of which we have a foretaste in the sacraments and in fraternal love, impels us to go forth to the ends of the earth (cf. Mic 5:4; Mt 28:19; Acts 1:8; Rom 10:18).”  We are blessed by those who help our mission projects through this fund, assisting wherever the need is greatest in going forth in His love to the ends of the earth.   

The Dhanjuri Leprosy Control Center needs assistance in the treatment, care and therapy of patients. This Center is a charitable program of the Catholic Church of the Dinajpur Diocese in Bangladesh. It aims for full implementation of multi-drug therapy service in partnership with the government and covers 13 sub-districts of Dinajpur, areas known as the highest leprosy endemic of Bangladesh.  Activities at the Center include case detection through the information program, house to house visits and absentee tracing, treatment of all patients, prevention of deformity (P.O.D.), community based rehabilitation, education for both patient and the public and staff development training.  Thanks to the help of PIME USA donors, those with leprosy in Dinajpur have been helped over the past few years.  The clinic continues to need annual support of $5,555 for the coming three years (2023-25). With your help, the leprosy patients of Dinajpur will continue to receive the healthcare they need for years to come.  

PIME Missionary Fr. Mateus Jensen Didonet works in Mumbai, India, in an area next to a garbage dump where the people have settled into makeshift housing without basic services.  Many of the people here pick through the garbage salvaging what they can to survive. Children roam aimlessly in unhygienic surroundings – because only 30% of children in Mumbai slums have access to pre-primary education. The children of the area are vulnerable and lack basic health, hygiene, and education.  Fr. Mateus’ project aims at breaking the cycle of poverty by targeting the youngest children in Pre-K with quality education/academics, sports, and education on values.  His program will enhance academic performance and the skills needed for primary education and beyond, boosts self-confidence, reduces drop out rates and positively affects families and the community.  Your support can help Fr. Mateus break the cycle of poverty and unlock the potential for a brighter future for these children.  

Why is the work of AsiaNews so important? Your monetary support allows for a platform where even the quietest voices can still be heard. You can hear the voice of a journalist living in a country considered to be the periphery of the world, read the story of a Christian living in a country where their religion is regulated or banned altogether, or even live the daily struggles of someone suffering due to ongoing war or prejudice in their country. Your financial support gives a voice to the voiceless; AsiaNews supports the mission of the Universal Church.

In 1934, Fr. Soichi Iwashita established the Shinsei-kaikan (“Truth” and “Light”) Center in Tokyo originally as a dormitory for young people rooted in Christian spirit and values. In January 2022, the Shinsei-kaikan Center became a Foundation for promoting well-being in Japanese society and is open to all seeking meaning or struggling with various burdens in Japan’s complex society. The competitive nature of the Japanese economy and dependence on lengthy education have led to a hollowing out of the human spirit and to suffering, especially among the youth. Problems include a rise in depression, suicide attempts, a weakening of family ties, school dropouts, family violence, hikikomori (a form of severe social withdrawal), and bullying. The Shinsei-kaikan Center offers a place for learning, friendship, and relaxation to help young people rediscover the beauty of their hearts and develop a balanced mind and body. The Gospel plays a key role in the Center’s activities and features programs that include lectures on modern society, the way people live, living the light of Christianity, Christian culture and education, and the origin and the legacy of Christianity, as well as educational student programs. The Shinsei-kaikan Center provides both enrichment through the Gospel and a place for nurturing people who can contribute to Japanese society's true development and richness.  Your support for this project will help the Japanese youth find the “Truth” and “Light” in their lives through the Gospel at the Shinsei-kaikan Center.

The Diocese of Acapulco, Mexico, is divided into three regions: Costa Chica, Costa Grande, and Acapulco. PIME's mission in this diocese is located in Costa Chica at La Concordia.  The mission is in the highlands 155 miles from the city of Acapulco with a total population of about 8,000.  Here PIME Missionary Fr. Mauro Pazzi works with the local and indigenous people bringing them the Gospel and assistance. La Concordia is the parish center from which he and the other PIME missionaries visit the other 34 villages that belong to their parish. Apart from a few small stretches, the roads to reach these villages are not paved and many of them cannot be reached in the rainy season, which hinders pastoral outreach.  Fr. Mauro requested $6,500 in assistance from the PIME Mission Center to purchase a new motorcycle to help them keep in touch and accompany those in these remote areas of the diocese.  Your help can bring Christ’s mercy to most in need in the remote villages of Acapulco’s highlands.