Fidesco is a Catholic NGO that provides professional volunteers to some of the world’s most challenged communities. Fidesco USA (d/b/a of American Compassion Services) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit charitable organization listed in the Official Catholic Directory.
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News and announcements
With 98 volunteer candidates in their final week of training and formation, the Fidesco team gave them a full schedule of activities to send them on their mission with their toolbox filled to the brim. Do keep all of these young adults, retirees, couples and families with children in your prayers as they head to offer the gift of themselves to those they will serve. Thank you.
March 22 at 2:15 pm (EST) there will be an online Fidesco Information evening in English (about 90 minutes)
Participants, from all over the world, who are thinking about leaving with Fidesco are welcome!
Topics:
Register on: webinar@fidesco.de
Fidesco has created a new way for retirees to volunteer and the Casa Valentina project will benefit from this initiative. Marie-Danielle and Joel Lepeyrou will be heading to Bucharest in January where they will bring their experience and life skills to the parents and children at Casa Valentina. Marie-Danielle and Joel have commited to volunteering for four months over the next three years at this NGO. Others will volunteer to keep a continuous Fidesco presence there.
On the occasion of the 5th World Day of the PoorNovember 18, 2021 from 2:15 pm to 3:30pm EST
Digital “Meet and Greet” with Gregoire and Jessica de Lassus.
– Why are they on a Fidesco mission?
– What are they doing in Benin, Africa?
– What can you do yourself for the poor?
Register today via www.fidesco.nl and receive the link for this Teams meeting.
After gathering 87 volunteers for final training in July, Drew, Nora & Ghislain have been able to procure their visas and get to work in their misison countries. Fidesco continue to battle the visa challenges to allow our partners the excellent help of our volunteers. One more American is waiting for her mission to begin. Thank you for your continued support.
As part of our 40 year anniversary that Fidesco is currently celebrating, Pope Francis invited members for a private audience on March 20, 2021. Here is the link to this unique moment: https://youtu.be/mKDmr5zW44Q
Today is the day to submit your non-binding application for a 2021 departure on mission. Fidesco USA will host an invitation-only Discernment Weekend from April 9 to April 11, 2021. Attendance is mandatory for a 2021 departure. Send your questions to Info@fidescousa.org and we hope to hear from you!
Fidesco Information Session offered FREE online Participants from all over the world who are discerning service with Fidesco are welcome! Date & time: February 23 @ 2:15 pm to 3:45 pm (EST) Topics: •What is Fidesco? •Discerning a departure •Q&A Register at: info@fidesco.de
Why launch the South-North mission? In the past the mission had been the response to a call from the Universal Church which concerned people of all origins. Like in the past, now it is the volunteers of the South who leave their countries and their habits to put themselves at the service of others. They set off to meet another culture, to meet sisters and brothers who suffer because, if the countries of the South have poverty, the countries of the North also have poverty. The people of the countries of the South have a great wealth to bring to the North and former volunteers have noticed this during their own missions. The implementation of this voluntary reciprocity is driven by the urgency of building a culture of encounter for a more fraternal world. Our former volunteers have experienced the joy of meeting and of serving the poor; they have known how much volunteers in the field need to feel supported. I make myself the spokesperson for Laura and Aimé (read below) to tell you how much your prayer counts for their mission. I wish you to live this Christmas season in joy and hope. Very fraternally, Emeric Clair, Director of Fidesco PS read more under Posts
The year 2020 is coming to an end! It is an opportunity for Fidesco to remember all that we have experienced during this special year, marked by the ordeal of the pandemic. Through this letter, we wish to share with you the joys, the difficulties, the challenges taken up, the reasons for hope that have marked this trying but so richly instructive year.
A mobilized team
The year 2020 has been turned upside down by the outbreak of the pandemic. Faced with this crisis, the Fidesco team, and in particular the monitoring center, took action: setting up a crisis unit, daily monitoring of the situation in the various countries in close collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, repatriation of some volunteers… This monitoring work is still ongoing.
Recruitment, training and dispatch continued
The needs of our partners in the field are even stronger today! This is why Fidesco resolutely pursued the recruitment and training of volunteers in 2020, with one key word: adaptation. E-discernment session, Fidesco remote meetings, and an additional discernment session in Paray-le-Monial in July: a new promotion of volunteers was thus formed and sent during a very nice sending session in Paray -le-Monial, for our greatest joy! The attitude of abandonment and availability of these new volunteers, who said yes to the mission in an uncertain context, particularly touched us. At present, some of them have been able to go to their place of mission; others are still awaiting departure. Fidesco maintains contact with everyone and closely follows the openings of the mission countries.
In the field: missions under the sign of fraternity
The pandemic had a considerable impact on the missions of our volunteers: confinement, missions to arrest or cut off certain activities, increase in poverty. This difficult situation allowed the volunteers to enter a more essential dimension of the mission: to be a simple fraternal presence, at the heart of the ordeal. This presence in fidelity and perseverance has greatly affected the local populations: we have received many testimonies of it through the mission reports of the volunteers. Many of them have also invested in local solidarity actions to deal with the crisis.
Support our partners in times of crisis
The current crisis sharply worsens poverty situations around the world. During 2020, our partners had to face immense needs, not only health, but also economic and food. That is why Fidesco has decided to open an exceptional fundraiser to meet the needs generated by COVID. We were touched by the outpouring of generosity that this fundraiser generated!
New projects have emerged
Finally, the current pandemic has not prevented us from implementing new projects. After a long preparatory work, the South-North mission now allows Fidesco to send volunteers from countries of the South for a year of mission in France! The pioneers of this project are Aimé and Laura, two young Rwandans who arrived in France in September, at the service of the associations Aux Captifs la Liberation, APA and Simon de Cyrene. Other South-North volunteers are expected in 2021 from several African countries: a very concrete way of living this culture of encounter to which Pope Francis invites us in his last encyclical Fratelli Tutti.
Finally, a new mission formula has been put in place for retired people, with the possibility of leaving between 4 and 6 months per year, over a period of 4 consecutive years, in the service of the same partner. The first volunteers who will experience this new mission proposal will leave at the beginning of 2021!
During this year 2020, you have once again shown us your faithful support, without which our mission would not be possible: we would like to warmly thank you.