Rotary Mid Isle of St. Maarten is one of the many organizations which helps support Pierre Bourbonnais and his Fides Caritas foundation in Venezuela. Once or twice a year, Bourbonnais visits The Friendly Island and meets with the Rotary Club to update the club on his activities.
Fides Caritas, which means Faith and Charity, is a legally registered non-profit foundation that does Christian social work. The organization, which Bourbonnais founded with his wife Luisa Escudero in November 2002, is neither a church nor affiliated to any particular denomination. They follow the creed: True religion is keeping one’s heart clean and hands dirty – in human service. ~Unknown.
The foundation focuses on three areas of help. First they provide educational opportunities doing everything from building or repairing schools to hosting workshops. Fides Caritas also distributes food, clothing and medicine to those in need and provides micro-loan programmes for family development in rural and suburban areas.
“We are a little different than most charities,” said Bourbonnais. “We don’t give people anything. We assist them.” He explained that if an area needs a school, Fides Caritas will purchase material and provide supervision, but the local people have to help do the actual work of constructing the building.
He further explained that Fides Caritas doesn’t import containers of supplies and/or building materials. They purchase everything locally so the influx of money helps the community as a whole. They provide micro-loans to those with plans to begin small business such as tailors and seamstress projects, and they also provide training on how to keep these efforts afloat.
Bourbonnais is the foundation’s General Secretary; his wife is the President. Bourbonnais has been an active missionary for more than 20 years serving Latin America and the Caribbean. He has worked in missions, social services, aide programmes and on disaster relief efforts.
In his last visit to St. Maarten and the Rotary, Bourbonnais was candid about the challenges facing Venezuela in its current economic slump. He noted that both poverty and crime are increasing.
He also told of the good works his foundation has accomplished despite the obstacles. The “Healthy Child Programme” distributed 1,500 litres of milk and 2.3 tons of foodstuffs and proteins. Clothing was distributed for 181 needy children.
The Educational Fund sponsored school supplies, books and uniforms for 325 children.
The Medical Fund received and distributed medicines and medical supplies to impoverished areas up in the mountains as well as sponsored five children's medical needs.
The “Casa Decente” project helped two families this year: one with a plot of land to be built on and the other with building materials such as bricks and roofing.
Project Hope gave out three new micro-loans to single mothers this year; another chance to grow & become self-sufficient.
Some 245 children attended this year’s Christmas celebrations at the village of Los Altos de Sucre and surrounding areas; each of the children enjoyed a Christmas party, meal, cake and gifts.
“I find it amazing to see how far we’ve come in the past 12 years beginning in Puerto La Cruz with a handful of underprivileged children to eventually moving into the nearby mountains where we are now established in the small village of Los Altos de Sucre where at present we work with 325 kids,” said Bourbonnais. “In spite of so many difficulties and hard times, by God's Grace and your partnership through our various projects, programmes and extracurricular, we’ve attended to a total of 7,851 underprivileged children; not to mention building and/or rehabilitating schools and medical facilities in the Turimiquire region.”
At the Rotary meeting, Bourbonnais apologized for not having the usual PowerPoint presentation full of photos so the Rotarians could see the foundation’s progress. Bourbonnais revealed his computer had been stolen. For more information on Fides Caritas, visit http://www.fidescaritas.org
