{"id":27291,"date":"2018-02-13T08:49:50","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T08:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=27291"},"modified":"2018-02-13T08:49:50","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T08:49:50","slug":"chile-helping-destitute-migrants-bolivia-chile-border-maria-lozano-acn-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/02\/13\/chile-helping-destitute-migrants-bolivia-chile-border-maria-lozano-acn-international\/","title":{"rendered":"CHILE: Helping destitute migrants on the Bolivia-Chile border Maria Lozano \u2013 ACN International"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>CHILE<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Helping destitute migrants on the Bolivia-Chile border<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>During his recent visit to Chile, Pope Francis visited Iquique, a coastal city in the north of the country which hosts a large number of economic migrants. They represent a major challenge for the Chilean people.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>In Pisiga, a frontier post on the border between Bolivia and Chile, the international Catholic pastoral charity and pontifical foundation <strong>Aid to the Church in Need (ACN)<\/strong> has helped for the construction of a reception centre for these migrants, together with a convent for the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent De Paul, who run the centre.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The time is 3 a.m. and the temperature is hovering at around 10\u00b0C below zero. A young man from Colombia gets down from the bus, after an eight-day journey from home, having travelled via Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. These were just stopped on the way on a journey that always had Chile as its destination. He feels fortunate to be here; the city he comes from is one of the major port cities in Colombia, yet at the same time it is plagued by criminal gangs linked to drug trafficking and the guerrilla bands. Poverty and violence reign there, so he has put his hopes in Chile. Not that there is much hope left by now, for during the last few days he has been robbed and maltreated, especially on the border checkpoints in Peru and Bolivia. The little savings he did have with him were prematurely stripped from him at one of the border posts. They allowed him through but refused to give him the <em>Tarjeta Andina<\/em> \u2013 a form of migrant passport for the countries of the region. So now he is an illegal immigrant on the frontier with Chile.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It is just one of the many such stories that Sister Fanny Lupa, of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent De Paul, hears every day at the reception centre the sisters opened here in 2011 entitled <em>Misi\u00f3n: Estar en Frontera<\/em>, (\u201cMission on the Frontier\u201d). \u201cIt was these people, the poor, who led to the creation of this welcome centre because God hears their pleas and cries for help\u201d, Sister Fanny explains. So that is the reason why these three Daughters of Charity now find themselves here, in accordance with their missionary charism, listening to \u201cthe cries of pain of our migrant brothers and sisters who use this frontier post on the Pisiga-Colchane Pass, and most of whom find themselves alone, abandoned and socially excluded and without the bare minimum for survival.\u201d That is why they built the home on this 3,800 metre-high mountain pass in the Andes on the Inter-Oceanic Highway linking Brazil, Bolivia and Chile.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It is a sense of abandonment felt also by Esther, aged 44 and travelling with her four children. \u201cThey depend on me. I am mother and father to them, and I am willing to fight for them. Everything I do is for my children.\u201d As she speaks, she cannot hold back the tears. Like 95% of the immigrants knocking on the door of the sisters\u2019 mission, she is Colombian and of Afro-American descent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Sister Fanny suffers with them. \u201cThey have been travelling for a full week without a bed to sleep in and without eating\u2026 They arrive at our centre almost dead with cold, and the altitude generally wreaks havoc with them. Sometimes they think they\u2019re dying because the altitude has a really disconcerting effect on them. So the first thing we do is to give them a hot mat\u00e9 tea, and then, once they have gained a little bit more colour, we offer them food, show them a place to sleep, and have a little talk with them to learn about the reality of their situation.\u201d This is by no means easy work for the sisters themselves, In fact, given the extremely cold climate, the strong winds and the altitude, they themselves have sometimes become ill and had to be replaced from time to time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">After all that the migrants have had to endure and undergo during their arduous journey, the sisters\u2019 frontier mission is like a little piece of heaven for them. Esther puts it well: \u201cThey don\u2019t know who they\u2019re opening the door to\u2026 And then suddenly, they open it, they ask a couple of questions and then \u2018Come in!\u2019 And then immediately, they\u2019re giving you a room, offering you food, shelter, it\u2019s truly a blessing. They really are a blessing, these women!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Sister Fanny confirms this \u201cThey tell us, it\u2019s like a luxury hotel for them. They can have a bath, wash their clothes, things they couldn\u2019t do before. And here again, we have to give them a lot of encouragement.\u201d Certainly, it is true that, in addition to giving them warmth and a roof over their heads, the sisters provide the migrants with important information and guidance. They do so above all in order to prevent the single women with few economic resources from falling into the hands of people smugglers or into prostitution. At the same time, they give them guidance as to the various legal channels for entering Chile and warn them of the risks of illegal entry, taking care to inform the immigrants about their rights and duties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Nor do the sisters concern themselves solely with the material needs of these people. They also pray with and for the people who pass through their reception centre. They identify with their sufferings and pray that somehow someone may be able to change the situation of harassment and ill-treatment, the denial of respect and basic rights to these people. \u201cWe ourselves feel helpless in this situation. It hurts us that the Colombians, and especially the coloured ones, feel rejected because of their race. They are treated like second-class citizens. I can only hope that one day this attitude will disappear\u201d, Sister Fanny tells us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">But then she brushes aside the sadness. \u201cWe know we\u2019re not alone. It was you who with your support for our community has made it possible for us to establish this mission among our migrant brothers and sisters. May God bless you all abundantly for all the hard work you have done, our brothers and sisters in this great Association ACN.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul began their work in Pisiga in a rented house. For the first three years, they suffered from a lack of basic structures \u2013 bathrooms, kitchen and dormitories were all inadequate. They often had to sleep on the floor. In 2014 ACN helped them to build the present welcome centre for migrants, together with accommodation for the sisters. In 2017, with support from ACN, they also installed a solar energy system with tanks and water pumping equipment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>Maria Lozano \u2013 ACN International<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHILE Helping destitute migrants on the Bolivia-Chile border During his recent visit to Chile, Pope Francis visited Iquique, a coastal city in the north of the country which hosts a large number of economic migrants. They represent a major challenge for the Chilean people. In Pisiga, a frontier post on the border between Bolivia and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>CHILE: Helping destitute migrants on the Bolivia-Chile border Maria Lozano \u2013 ACN International - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/02\/13\/chile-helping-destitute-migrants-bolivia-chile-border-maria-lozano-acn-international\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CHILE: Helping destitute migrants on the Bolivia-Chile border Maria Lozano \u2013 ACN International - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CHILE Helping destitute migrants on the Bolivia-Chile border During his recent visit to Chile, Pope Francis visited Iquique, a coastal city in the north of the country which hosts a large number of economic migrants. 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