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Caritas South Sudan Slices Church Projects to Contribute to COVID-19 Emergency Fund

Gabriel Yai, Executive Director for Caritas South Sudan.

The leadership of Caritas South Sudan, the development and humanitarian arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference that had previously expressed commitment to contribute to the Vatican COVID-19 Fund has responded by cutting on other Church projects to raise money towards the Fund.

Speaking to ACI Africa in the country’s capital Juba, Executive Director for Caritas South Sudan Gabriel Yai, said for the management to contribute, it took a small amount of money from their incumbent projects.

“With the small project that we are implementing under the emergency appeal, we decided to take something from the administration cost to be our contribution for the Caritas Internationalis Solidarity Fund for COVID-19,” said Mr. Yai.

In April this year, Pope Francis made a special appeal, creating an emergency fund at the Vatican to tackle the pandemic in the mission countries around the globe, Catholic News Agency reported.

A month later, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the President of Caritas Internationalis proceeded to ask the Caritas confederation of 165 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations in the world to heed the call of the Holy Father to support the most affected by the deadly outbreak.

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Caritas South Sudan made the final decision last month to partake in charity funding disclosing that money was transferred to the confederation account in June.     

“After we got the email from the Secretary General of the Caritas Internationalis, and after consultations with Bishops, we managed to contribute some money to the Caritas Internationalis Solidarity Fund,” Executive Director for Caritas South Sudan Gabriel told ACI Africa on Thursday, July 16.

He added, citing the developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America as the possible areas that require solidarity of all the Caritas members and other Charity organizations, “I think solidarity is very important and we need to support each other, especially those who are really suffering in countries where there are not enough resources.”

Mr. Yai further said that the emergency appeal, for which part of it was donated to the confederation, is launched by Caritas Internationalis on behalf of Caritas South Sudan and that the contribution comes from all the members especially the Caritas network.

Amid financial challenges, Caritas South Sudan, according to Yai, is facilitating the operations of COVID-19 projects in the seven Catholic Dioceses in the world’s newest nation.

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“We are still doing our emergency response in all the dioceses of South Sudan,” he said, and added, “We are providing some food items to the dioceses where aid is needed the most.”

Mr. Yai said the contribution from the Church in South Sudan is a “drop in the ocean” considering the projected contribution at the Vatican.

“Caritas South Sudan’s donations will not do much in the Holy Father’s designated US$750,000.00, but it will surely go a long way to support the vulnerable people during this pandemic,” the South Sudanese Caritas official told ACI Africa.