2023-2024 BROTHERS FIC IN SOLIDARITY WORK

(By Bro. Gasper Kalisto FIC)

Let me start by quoting our constitutions which emphasizes that to live according to the spirit of our Founders, as Brothers FIC, particularly means to have a special concern for the poor and destitute, for the underprivileged and disabled, for socially weak and forgotten groups, for those who experience little love (FIC Constitutions article 17). With this same spirit, as Brothers in Malawi province, we thought it wise to embark on a charity initiative aiming at empowering some of the widows within our communities for them to be self-reliant.

When we are doing our apostolates in various areas we keep our eyes open to see the nature of environment we are in. It has always been observed that the levels of poverty in our country have been rising for the past years. The numbers of single parents have been rising too and widows have been grappling with a lot of economic challenges. Unfortunately, not much is being done to uplift their lives. So, through our communities, we tried to select some needy widows so that we can help them partially on giving them a starter pack to start their own business. We managed to select thirty-two beneficiaries who were struggling to raise their families disregarding their religious denominations.