By Thaddeus Jones
The organization “Hope for Life” based in Accra, Ghana, has reminded its members about how the universal Church is celebrating the Jubilee for People with Disabilities during these days in Rome from Apr 28-29. This Jubilee has boosted hopes among the members of this local religious-run humanitarian organization that aims to assist and empower people living with physical and mental challenges.
Helping and empowering
Hope for Life started some forty years ago, the idea and joint venture of a French priest, Fr Jean Thébault, a member of the Society of African Missions (SMA) together with people with disabilities he was trying to assist in his pastoral work in Ghana. It came about as a response to a community need. One time a local Muslim friend with muscular dystrophy and mobility difficulties asked him if he could procure a wheelchair for him so he could simply go outside and sit under a tree to enjoy the outdoors. Fr Jean helped find him a wheelchair, but also suggested he might consider more about what he could do with that wheelchair other than just enjoying the outdoors. So his friend, who had been able to go to school, decided to start a business by offering to prepare and type letters for people, using his ability to meet people outdoors and promote this activity. The business went well and helped him earn essential income. He later started a school in a poor area of Accra for children, including those with disabilities, free of charge or the need to purchase school supplies that can be expensive. The school expanded over the years so that he was able to educate hundreds of children.
Supporting one another
Steve Phillips, a lay missionary with the Society of African Missions (SMA) who runs Hope for Life, explains how the inspiration for the organization continues to motivate its members today. He coordinates the outreach of 16 branches or groups of members with disabilities who offer local assistance in their neighborhoods in the capital Accra and surrounding areas. Members are of all different cultural and religious backgrounds united in their common goal to help and empower one another. The members of Hope for Life help each other with the physical and mental challenges they face in common. Some have mobility issues due to amputation, illness, or from birth; others are struggling to raise their children who have cerebral palsy. All help each other with their living basic needs, job skills training, but especially in helping create job opportunities that can generate income that would otherwise be impossible to find without begging on the streets.
Creating businesses and building communities
Hope for Life members are involved in a variety of self-generated projects and activities that help put food on the table, stay active and involved, full members of their communities where they work. They include mushroom cultivation that supplies local restaurants, snail farms, street food they prepare and sell, shoemaking, bread making, packaging and distributing cooking charcoal, running small grocery stands. Work also includes care and educational services for children with cerebral palsy, outreach to help mothers help each other in caring for them, physical therapy, and transportation to care centers.
Families of solidarity, communities of hope
“Hope for Life members often tell us that this personal touch, care and attention is not offered by other groups” Steve emphasizes. And what really matters is gathering “as brothers and sisters to support each other, lift each other up, encourage each other, advise each other, reminding members that Hope for Life can only be as strong as its members.”
Close to the most abandoned
A dimension of the charism of the SMAs is to be “close to the most abandoned.” Fr Paul Ennin, Provincial of the Society of African Missions (SMA) in Ghana, as well as President of the Major Superiors Conference of West Africa (MSCWA), says that their ministry calls them to “look out for people and situations that are most neglected and try to offer response to their concerns using Christian principles of charity and respect for human dignity.” And working with persons with disabilities through Hope for Life responds to the host of initiatives they have undertaken in favor of integral human development in Ghana, as well as contributing in a concrete way to “helping the physically challenged to be fully integrated into the society.”
Pride in putting abilities to work
Lay missionary, Steve Phillips, says “the end goal is always to be a support” for one another as members of the Hope for Life family, “but also to help people reach their goals of being active, valuable members of their families and communities.”
With a Jubilee perspective
Everyone gives and receives in abundance, he continues, and Steve feels like he has been one of the prime beneficiaries through the inspiration Hope for Life members give him: their tenacity despite the physical or mental challenges, their care and concern for one another, and the self-respect and dignity they manifest and deserve. “These are my advisors and friends, wise people. And their experiences, the things they have been through, have opened their eyes to life and the value of life in ways that many of us have never thought of because we’ve never been faced with the same challenges they have.” So, he says that we should all look to people with physical and mental challenges “with open eyes, open minds and hearts, hear what they have to say, hear the advice they have, hear their thoughts, laugh with them, cry with them.” In recalling the Jubilee for People with Disabilities, he suggests we remember to show these persons the same respect we are called to show all people, recognizing their God-given dignity, the challenges they face, but also the abilities and experiences they can offer to our communities and society. – Vatican News
