15 february 2010, DREAM session held at the Motherhouse in Paris 18th to 22nd January, 2010
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Twenty Daughters of Charity from 6 African countries, the team of DREAM specialists from the Sant’ Egidio Community, two representatives of IPS (International Project Services of the Daughters of Charity) and Father Robert Maloney, coordinator of the partnership of the Daughters of Charity with the Sant’ Egidio Community, met for the first time in Paris.
It was a week of intense work, to share difficult experiences, to make new acquaintances, to prepare budgets and to evaluate the path taken for 5 years since Sr. Evelyne signed an agreement of collaboration with the Community of Sant’Egidio.
Presently, the Daughters of Charity, in partnership with the Sant’ Egidio Community, run six DREAM Centers in the following countries: Mozambique, Cameroon, Nigeria, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo; a seventh clinic in Tanzania will open in the coming months.
During the week there were audiovisual presentations from each DREAM Center. Friday evening these presentations served as background for a time of thanksgiving with the Sisters of the Motherhouse. The audiovisuals showed the wonderful manner in which poor persons are served “with audacity and creativity”, and how “collaboration is intensified at all levels in the Vincentian spirit.” By putting humanity at the center, the DREAM Program offers a veritable Resurrection to many sick persons, permitting them to come to the aid of other victims and to better the quality of life for numerous families. The grand dream of Sant’ Egidio is not simply to make the sick well, but to spread the Gospel of hope through lavish free care to more than 80,000 sick, and by a specialized formation offered to all the collaborators of the Centers. The excellent results obtained are a strong stimulus to overcome numerous challenges that still exist in order to fight against this pandemic which, for the first time in the history of humanity, strikes the entire planet!
Vincentian Family and Sant’Egidio Community,
A common passion for poor persons and for Africa
Project DREAM: Collaboration between Community Sant'Egidio and the Daughters of Charity.
(From a report of Fr Robert P. Maloney, C.M.)
The acronym DREAM signifies “Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition”. As the third millennium was dawning, the Community of Sant’Egidio, (a lay community founded in 1968 in Rome and recognized canonically by the Catholic Church) many of whose members are health-care professionals, began to reflect on a glaring injustice in the global social structure: the majority of those with AIDS in Western Europe and the USA were receiving “triple-therapy” and, as a result, continued to live, whereas each year millions of AIDS victims in Africa continued to die.
After common reflection on the AIDS crisis in Africa, the Community formulated this priority: it would offer the same treatment, and the same hope, to patients in Africa as was available to victims in Western Europe and the USA. Consequently, the Community designed DREAM and began a pilot project in Mozambique in March 2002.
In June 2005, the Community of Sant’Egidio entered into a cooperative agreement with the Daughters of Charity, one of the world’s largest communities of sisters, founded by St. Vincent de Paul in 1633 to serve the sick poor. At present the Daughters labor in 21 African countries and have numerous native-born sisters there. They staff hospitals and clinics in most of the 93 countries where they serve throughout the world and have well-trained personnel. The advantages of cooperation between Sant’Egidio and the Daughters are significant. Sant’Egidio provides the DREAM model for AIDS treatment, as well as formation and evaluation in the use of that model. The Daughters provide personnel, their experience in health care, their native contacts within various countries, and, perhaps most important, the assurance that the resources of the program will reach the poorest of the poor directly. The joint participation of these two communities guarantees that costs are kept low while quality is kept high. The program is totally free of cost for those receiving treatment.
Systemic Change
In projects like DREAM, it is important not just to meet the immediate needs of the poor and sick, but also to promote long-term systemic change. Of course, providing immediate help and working for systemic change are not an “either/or” option; they are a “both/and” imperative.
Five strategies have proved crucial in promoting long-term systemic change in Africa and other places:
1) The project involves the poor themselves at all stages: planning, implementation, evaluation and revision.
2) The project is holistic, addressing a series of basic human needs: especially health care, housing, education, jobs, and spiritual growth.
3) The project is sustainable because the human resources (e.g., leadership), and the economic resources which are needed for sustaining it, are built in.
4) The project, besides its measurable results, builds a sense of belonging, participation, and community “ownership”.
5) The project involves collaborative partnership among various sectors of society: the needy themselves as the principal agents, local and national governments, the private sector (NGO’s, businesses), churches, and interested individuals.
To the extent possible, DREAM attempts to incorporate these strategies into its project design, so that its results will be sustainable in the long run.
Little more than 7 years have passed since the launching of DREAM, with the opening of the first laboratory of molecular biology in Maputo, Mozambique, January 2, 2002. From then on, the "dream" of conquering AIDS in Africa has arrived to many thousands of people, multiplying their life and being for many a true resurrection.
DREAM, indeed, is a medical intervention of excellence, but it is also much more. It is enough to look at the synergy among Europeans and Africans raised by the program: there are more than 300 people who go regularly to Africa to sustain the activity of DREAM, as well as initiating investigation initiatives or support. In an age of greed, of dreams and perspectives, in which the distance between people and cultures seems to be growing wider, DREAM designs a geography of solidarity that unites and involves many from different countries and conditions in the battle for life.
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