SIHMA | Scalabrini Institute For Human Mobility In Africa
13
JUN

Scalabrini Day Commemoration

1 of June 2023 marked the memory of St John Scalabrini, founder of the Congregation of the Scalabrini Fathers and promoter of the pastoral care of migrants, refugees, and people on the move around the world.

SIHMA, together with its sister organisations Scalabrini Centre and Lawrence House, gathered on this day at the Scalabrini Centre Hall to commemorate this event. This event was special as it followed the canonization of St John Scalabrini as a Saint in a ceremony held in Rome in October 2022. The event began by highlighting the history of the Scalabrini Mission starting from the early works of John Scalabrini with Italian migrants in the 19th Century to the present day works of the Scalabrini Fathers globally. Furthermore, during the event, the history of the Scalabrini Mission in Cape Town was also highlighted.

A short snippet from the canonization event was played which gave a background of the work that John Scalabrini did over the years and why he was declared as a saint.  In his speech, Pop Francis reiterated the continuous need to welcome, protect, promote, and integrate migrants. According to him, “The exclusion of migrants is scandalous,’’ and he further highlighted that, “Indeed, the situation of migrants is criminal. They are left to die in front of us, making the Mediterranean the largest cemetery in the world. The situation of migrants is disgusting, sinful, criminal. Not to open the doors to those who are in need. No, we exclude them, we send them away to lager, where they are exploited and sold as slaves.” He urged the faithful to consider the treatment of migrants, asking: ‘’Do we welcome them as brothers, or do we exploit them?”

During the event, information on the new Scalabrini mission that has opened on the 11th of January 2023 in Uganda (Aura and Kampala districts) was introduced, whereby the two Fathers Fr Walter and Fr John gave an overview of the pastoral work that they are doing with refugees and the opening of their first house in Uganda. Building onto this SIHMA presented its research work including proposed research in Uganda, to map the presence, needs of refugees in Uganda and develop a Key Performance Indicator Framework for refugees integration in Uganda.  This is aimed at informing the new mission by the Scalabrini Fathers and advocacy, support, and programmes for refugees in Uganda.

After SIHMA’s presentation, the Scalabrini Centre director engaged the team members around the 4 verbs (welcome, protect, promote, integrate) on the work with migrants to understand how these inform the work. As part of this, different colour codes that were recently developed were unveiled including how they link with the different programmes that Scalabrini Centre is offering. In conclusion, a film developed by Scalabrini titled “the Beehive” was screened during the event to show some of the work that the organisation is doing. Through the reflections from the film, the importance of supporting the migrants and refugees through different programmes was reinforced.

 

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