Parish Outreach Projects

Bosnian Refugee Settlement
Under the auspices of the Parish Overseas Aid Group, the Parish has undertaken work with a Refugee Settlement in Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH). These people have been 'ethnically cleansed' from other parts of the former Yugoslavia and have been settled on a limestone outcrop close to the village of Hodova in the municipality of Stolac.

A house in Hodova settlement

For twelve years the men and women and their families have lived a hand to mouth existence relying upon charitable donations. They seem to have been overlooked by government, local and national, and by NGO's. Initially the Croatian authorities gave them assistance to begin building homes, but when it became clear that this territory was to become BiH, the funding dried up and the people have been left in a destitute state.

HTSG Parish has been involved for three years. In the recent past, two reports have been written, one following a mission by Fr. Loughran, Anthony Fitzherbert and Frank Cook M.P., the other after a visit by Alan Whittaker and Adrian Lamb, construction professionals, accompanied by Fr. Loughran and Rev. Bernard Loveland.

Those reports are available on this website (Articles). See Hodova for latest update.

Our present efforts are:

1) Youth Outreach - In July and August 2007, a group of young people went out to the Refugee Settlement and worked on a project suggested by the local Mayor. He thought that restoring a sports pitch might be a good activity not just for our young people but also for the local youngsters. He was proved right. Twelve young people travelled out in the parish group supported by four adults. They had raised thousands of pounds for their travel and accommodation expenses, and thousands more was raised by the Parish to have the old pitch re-tarmaced and an area of scrubland cleared prior to our team arriving. The task was to make benches for the spectators and to build netting to stop the ball going off into the rough. This may sound easy but with a limestone pavement to dig into and temperatures of 35-40 degrees, it was very hard work. But the young people acquitted themselves admirably. All this activity caused the people at the top of the hill (in Hodovo village) and the people lower down the hill (in the Settlement) to come together and work with our young people. So not only was a pitch being built but so was a bridge! When we had achieved what we had set out to achieve the pitch was opened by the Mayor and our young people feted to a great feast.

Youth Outreach Group

(2) Restore Hope - The second part of our outreach had been called "Restore Hope". Our hope had been to raise one million euros to restore hope to the Settlers by putting into effect the report drawn up by Alan Whittaker & Adrian Lamb (Articles). The aim was to raise the living conditions of these poor people to habitable standards. There was very little support for this from Governmental and non-Governmental agencies. We are told that it is too long after the war for the UN to be able to help and other aid agencies have new priorities. So we have had to change our approach. Now we are well on the way to providing a bakery in Hodovo which will be run by five people from the Settlement. We are providing funding to restore the first unit in a parade of shops that was destroyed in the war. We have identified equipment in UK which is being donated and which we will have to get shipped out to BiH. We will provide some ‘seed funding’ to enable the essentials to be purchased for the bakery and also funding to support salaries over the first period of the business. Our hope is that the income generated will go into the Settlement and raise the standard of living.

(3) And there is more - We have invited several of the young people from the Settlement and some local Muslims to come over to Kendal in summer of 2008. What for? Well, first of all to improve their English language skills and then just to have a nice time. Of course all this will cost money but God has never let us down before and there is no reason to think that he will now.

These projects are on going and therefore, this text will be updated from time to time to reflect progress.

Sister Julie Fund
This outreach activity has been underway in the parish for many years. Sister Julie is a Religious Sister of Notre Dame and the relative of one of our parishioners. Sister Julie is part of a team of Sisters and others who run a hospital in Nigeria. Over the years the contributions by the parish have enabled much building work to take place at the hospital and also for ambulance vehicles to be provided.

Other Outreach Activities
There are other Outreach groups within the Parish such as Cenacolo and CAFOD. Cenacolo has its own information page on this site (see menu). There is also a link to the CAFOD website available under Useful links.