Over these past 25 years Mission Fund has been constant in helping me and other missionaries all over the world. I want to thank them wholeheartedly for all their work and most of all for the interest that all the Maltese have in the poor that we try to help.

The recent donation of e1,200 is very helpful. Of the two girls we have helped with their nursing studies, one has finished them this year and one still has the third year to complete.

We have been only been in Ethiopia for one and a half years, this being the last venture of our Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition. We, three sisters, are working in a Diocesan School in Addis Ababa.

Addis is a city swarming with all kinds of people but the salient feature is its poor. All the streets are lined with beggars of every sort and age; lepers, unwed mothers with their babies, street kids, the aged etc. No social assistance is available, no kind of free hospital care is provided and therefore we get a lot requests for help.

We have taken to provide free board and lodging for groups of heart patients who come from very far north on their way to Sudan for open heart surgery. They are sponsored for this journey and we help them during their stay in Addis, waiting for their transport to and fro. The groups consist of adults and children. Sometimes they are 12 at a time, sometimes more or less. Almost every month we have a group coming and another returning.

We also collect poor children and students who need after school help and a place to study in. They often don’t have a table and chair to do their homework on at home. Our aim is to build a Study Centre, which will be well equipped with books and computers.

This donation helps us to continue this small contribution in a sea of misery. Once again I thank you on behalf of my community.

Sr.Carmen Sammut sja

Addis Ababa,

Ethiopia