Salesians in Madagascar Battling Poverty, Illiteracy, Witchcraft in Evangelization Mission

Four Brothers who are SDB members are dedicated to helping the people who live in abject poverty in areas such as hospitality, health services, education, and above all, hope.

Fr. Giovanni says that the main problem that the people in the region who rely on farming face is the lack of water.

“The rains have decreased considerably and for an agricultural population that expects everything from the rains, it is problematic to make ends meet,” the Priest says the news report, and adds, “This year, it hardly rained.”

He narrates that the last thing that parents think about is the education of their children since, he says, the parents “do not even think about it, as their attention is focused on the most essential things.”

Despite the presence and use of social media, Fr. Giovanni says, the population is not very open to the outside world.

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This isolation, the SDB member explains, creates challenges for the missionaries who are focused on education and evangelization, with the help of social media.

“That is why we try to get children to study, educate their parents and, indirectly, direct them to profitable activities of various kinds so that they are autonomous,” he says.

In Ankililoaka, the SDB Missionaries run 14 primary schools in the villages with a school population of 2,599 pupils and a large middle school and high school with about 750 pupils.

In addition, the Missionaries work with the Trinitarian Sisters of Valenza who run a dispensary and a primary and nursery school with about 700 students.

“It is important for us to be close to people, always,” Fr. Giovanni writes to Agenzia Fides, the information service of the Vatican's Propaganda Fide.

“In our community, we strive to carry out a work of evangelization and human promotion, trying to educate young people and the population to work together, help each other, stimulating them to reflect and search for their autonomy,” he says.

The 78-year-old Cleric says that in places he has ministered on the world’s second-largest Island nation, he has learnt that the Church, especially the Missionaries, are the closest to the most vulnerable.

"Wherever I have worked… I have been able to verify that we are a point of reference for the people and that we must help them, encourage them, support them so that little by little, it reaches a sufficient degree of autonomy, even if the state does nothing for the moment and the people do not trust state structures,” says Fr. Giovanni.

He adds, “We do not get discouraged and we entrust ourselves to the Lord and to the Virgin Mary Help of Christians and even if progress is very slow and many times it seems that we are going backwards, we continue to fight and encourage the population.”

Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.