FRA IVICA PERIĆ

FRA IVICA PERIĆ 'Our mission in Rwanda is under threat: Covid has stopped everything, dead people are being buried in backyards. Fr. Ivica Perić has been taking care of the upbringing and education of children and youth in Rwanda for 17 years. A global pandemic has halted the project Writes: Nikola PatkovićPosted: October 4, 2020 8:14 pm "My name is Thomas Iraguha , I'm 19 years old, and in January I went to the first grade of a vocational school in Kivimu, Rwanda. Because of the coronavirus, all schools here are closed in March. It made me very sad because I was very happy because of school. Only two months I was a proud student, and now I can't wait for everything to calm down so we can continue where we left off, "said a young man from Rwanda, one of 670 students at the Father Vjeko Center, an educational center in the Rwandan village of Kivumu 17 years ago. founded by Fr. Ivica Perić , a Franciscan missionary from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who has been leading Franciscan missions in Africa for 30 years. Thomas and his family live in the village of Gitwiko, about fifteen kilometers from Kivumu. She has a younger brother who goes to a public elementary school in their parish, and an older sister who has finished elementary school and is now out of work, so she helps her mom around the house. Their father is a bricklayer, and their mother takes care of the garden they have next to the house, so that they can have some food. image Thomas Iraguha Private Archive "And I waited a long time after finishing primary school to get the opportunity for high school education. Now my wish has finally come true, and I am grateful to all the good people who help our Franciscans so we can go to school and achieve something in their lives. I've seen it so far at the "Father Vjeko" Center, I was delighted. It's not just ordinary classes, there is a lot of practice, which is the most important for us, future masters. We have the opportunity to work on machines I've never seen in my life, we have materials available for practice. I am sure that after this school I will be able to work as a carpenter wherever I want. I am very excited about it, "young Thomas writes in his letter. Thomas is happy not only because of the opportunity to go to school, but also because he had lunch every day at school, which, he says, meant a lot to him and his family. "And that's why I can't wait to go back to school. In our free time, we have access to basketball, volleyball and football courts, as well as, you guessed it, real straight balls - for basketball, volleyball and football! So far we have been in the village. always playing with balls we made ourselves from banana leaves, ”Thomas concluded. Fr. Ivica Perić has been tirelessly and selflessly caring for the upbringing and education of children and youth in Rwanda for 17 years. Before that, he was in Uganda for 13 years, and now he is leading the project of the "Father Vjeko" Center, in memory of his friend and Franciscan brother, Fr. Vjeko Curic , who takes better care of the locals every year. Thanks to Osijek humanitarians, spouses Maja Sajler-Garmaz and Željko Garmaz , the parish in Kivumu and its educational center have become the central place of Rwanda's education system a few years ago. computer scientists and welders. But then the crown came and in Rwanda everything stopped. image Br. Ivica Perić in Rwanda Private Archive However, when life stops in Croatia, and especially in some even more developed countries of the world, it is still observed and felt on a symbolic level. Especially if we compare it to what it looks like when life stops in Rwanda. There it is all, just not symbolically. For a large part of the citizens of this poor and still unrecovered state from the bloody civil war, and especially for children and young people who attend kindergarten and primary and secondary school in the "Father Vjeko" Center, life has stopped in all possible ways you can imagine. No food, no water. Admittedly, they did not have drinking water even before the corona, but with the corona they were left without food, ie the only hot meal a day that was provided to them in the parish school. Education at the "Father Vjeko" Center, namely, is not only the acquisition of knowledge and experience for the professions for which they are educated, but is practically the only way that these children can be sure that they will eat at least one hot meal every day. But with the advent of coronavirus overnight, they were left without it. - Yes, it was literally overnight. The Ministry of Health announced the decision on the blockade on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday morning they sent buses to pick up the children who were placed in our dormitory and took them to their places, to their parents' houses, and the children from Kivumu could no longer come to school. . Everything stopped. Public transportation was abolished, shops did not work, and it lasted a month. It was a shock for all of them, because they were left without a safe hot meal overnight, and food is everything to them - says Fr. Ivica about what the corona crisis has brought to such a afflicted and poor country, where the greatest joy and satisfaction of a child is once he can eat a hot meal a day. image Boris Kovacev / Cropix - In the beginning, it was very difficult, but after a month, a slight relaxation began, so we got the opportunity to get closer to the locals. However, we ourselves had a problem with food shortages, because 2019 was rainier than usual, so our two crops failed, so we had to buy additional food to distribute it to the poorest and families of our students. Rwanda is a predominantly mountainous, hilly country, with very little fertile land, as is Kivumu, which covers less than 60 square kilometers and even has about 35,000 inhabitants, so we have a big problem when we are left without it. little crop. Then, namely, we have to buy food in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, which is always more expensive, and now because of the crown, everything has become even more expensive. But still, we managed to solve that problem so we distributed about 17 tons of food, mostly beans, - Our school is private, we finance ourselves from donations from good people, companies and organizations, so we pay our teachers ourselves. As there were no classes, we hired them to decorate buildings, move machines, renovate, repair, paint the walls, because they are all masters at the same time. In parallel with them, we started to return students from vocational and technical schools to help with the work, because it is their obligation to pay tuition. For the younger ones, we organized other types of activities. We founded a table tennis and chess club, a journalism, drama and modeling section ... in which they elected a president, secretary and other functions from among themselves, and now they come to the Center for these activities. We also bought bicycles for the youngest ones, so they come to learn to ride, to play ... Basically, we did everything to keep the school alive, RELATED NEWS Laboratory near Cape Town, South Africa CROWN IN AFRICA They predicted a 'covid massacre', but the opposite happens: 'This is a great story, the pandemic is calming down' RECORD GROWTH South Africa introduces new measures: '50,000 people could die by year's end' Classes, therefore, have not yet begun in Rwanda, although there is considerable pressure from the United Nations on the authorities there to open schools as soon as possible. There are many problems in families due to lack of food, but also due to violence, both physical and sexual. Finally, because of these problems, we opened a school. It is speculated that we could start in January, and I am sure that all 670 students will return to us, because they primarily go to school because we provide them with one hot meal a day, which they do not have in their homes. image Father Vjeko Center in Rwanda Private Archive Those who are in our home, and there are 320 of them, have three meals a day, so we provide more than 1500 meals a day. So, that's why they come the most, and then we teach them responsibilities, obligations and trades and thus prepare them for life, for the labor market - said our interlocutor, who manages the parish and school, for which he was recently visited by people from the Ministry of Education. said it was the best school in Rwanda, out of 289 in total in that state. - We have all the machines and they all work, and what breaks down, we fix, while in other schools there is none. It is in their mentality that what goes wrong is no longer repaired, nor maintained as it should be. With us, every student has his own tool. We have 59 computers, 194 sewing and tailoring machines ... two large homes, men's and women's, a kitchen, a dining room ... All of this was started by Maja and Željko's first book "Our Man in Africa", and everything was built from donation of the Croatian people. We will soon start building a sports hall, otherwise the second in Rwanda. It is the only one currently in the capital, in Kigali. In addition, more than 95 percent of students have found work, and that’s nearly 2,500 young people. When employers hear where young masters were educated, they immediately accept them into their companies - Fr. Ivica praised the achievements of the Center "Father Vjeko", founded in memory of Fr. Vjeko Curic, a murdered Franciscan, who was among the inhabitants of Kivumu gained the status of a saint because of his humanitarian and rescue work during the civil war, when, risking his life, he saved more than 150,000 people, which is why he was called the African Schindler . We are immensely grateful to everyone who helped us with a minimal donation, because any help is extremely valuable to us. Especially at this time. The situation we are in now is not easy to describe, because it is really not easy for us - says Fr. Ivica, who is especially concerned that Rwanda does not have a developed health care system. According to official data, slightly more than 4,800 people have been infected with the coronavirus in Rwanda, there are currently about 1,700 infected and 29 have died, but it is clear to everyone that the numbers are much higher. image Boris Kovacev / Cropix Namely, the majority of the local population does not even go to the doctor, because they do not have health care if they do not pay for it, and the number of dead cannot be tracked because Rwandans bury their dead near their houses and no special records can be kept. - We pray that the coronavirus does not take too much tribute here, because people are not able to maintain hygiene like Europeans. In our parish we have 35,000 inhabitants, and not a single house has a water supply. They use tap water that we have set up in several places in the village. In addition, the immunity of many is already greatly weakened because they do not have regular meals, they do not go to the doctor ... - our interlocutor pointed out. As for testing, they are conducted in minimal numbers. Namely, each test costs 60,000 francs, which is about 400 kuna, or 53 euros, which are two monthly teacher salaries. However, the state has adopted some epidemiological measures, so masks are mandatory for everyone, both outdoors and indoors, and the penalty for not wearing is 10 euros, a third of a teacher's salary, but also one day of detention in the open, on the local playground. Public transport is now allowed only within the provinces, but not outside them, but an additional problem is that everything has become more expensive. So, for example, a kilo of beans jumped from 250 to 600 francs. There are a lot of hungry mouths and not enough food, so they will soon need new, additional quantities, which is in dire need of financial assistance that can be paid from Croatia to the IBAN of the Humanitarian Association Heart for Africa in Addiko Bank: HR7725000091101366453. The association, by the way, is led by the Garmaz couple, primarily with the aim of ensuring the work of the "Father Vjeko" Center and educating the children and youth there.