Issues We Care About

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Priority Issues

Hunger

The rural poor are most likely to suffer from hunger. Often it takes just a few simple resources for them to be able to grow enough food to become self-sufficient. These resources include quality seeds, appropriate tools and access to water. Small improvements in farming techniques and food storage methods are also helpful. Small-scale farmers should be given the opportunities and education they need to produce enough food and income to feed their families. Our natural resources need to be properly managed to ensure the land is not being over-used. Those without any land can be even hungrier: widows, orphans, the elderly, refugees. The wealthy eat first: grain, soy and other commodities are fed to animals to produce resource-intensive meat and dairy for the industrialized world, while the hungry lack the financial means to compete. [1] The Vincentian Family focused on hunger in a special way during their two-year Campaign Against Hunger.

Water

The availability of clean, fresh water is one of our most important issues. Our Sisters in particular have campaigned for water rights in many ways.

Sustainable Living

The Vincentian Family believes that we are all called to stop the devastation that humans are inflicting on the planet. We are committed to a way of living that values interdependence and the sacredness of the earth.

AIDS

AIDS destroys communities, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Orphaned children, whose parents died from AIDS, are suffering the consequences of the epidemic. Millions have to care for their ill parents, brothers and sisters, or have lost their loved ones, teachers, and others providing basic human services. The Daughters of Charity collaborate with the Community of Sant’Egidio on the D.R.E.A.M. project, whose special focus is to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS from a pregnant woman to her newborn child.

Human Trafficking

The International Daughters of Charity have taken an official position against Human Trafficking. The Daughters are involved at a local level to respond to human trafficking through existing networks and by providing direct services whenever possible.

Access to Basic Health Services

Part of our mission is to improve access for persons of low income or without health insurance to primary care and preventive health services. We are committed to stopping the inequities in access to healthcare between rich and poor, urban and rural, and from nation to nation. For example, Seton Institute supports the primary healthcare work of Catholic Sisters in the least developed countries.

Haiti

The Daughters of Charity, Sisters of Charity, and Ladies of Charity have served in Haiti for many years. The Congregation of the Mission also has two houses in Haiti. As part of our 350th Anniversary celebration, the Vincentian Family initiated Zafen, in partnership with Fonkoze, a Haitian microfinance institution, to empower sustainable economic development there.

Migrants

In the U.S., the Daughters of Charity and other branches work locally in direct service with immigrants, and nationally to promote reform. Based on our person-to-person experiences, we see how the enforcement of laws and policies needs to be aligned with humanitarian values.

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