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His Grace Anba Gawargious
(center) with local priests and representatives from Coptic
charities. |
Bishop
(Anba) Gawargious of Matay is pleased that his diocese is
blessed with several charities working to meet the needs of the community,
but wanted to see the charities work together more.
Anba
Gawargious gave Coptic Orphans the role of helping Coptic organizations
working in Matay take the first steps in coordinating their efforts.
On November 19 th and 20 th , six Coptic organizations that work in
Matay came to the meeting. Riad explained the need for the organizations
to step back and look at the impact they were having as a whole. “The
whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and that holds true with
our work in Egypt,” she said.
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Anba Gawargious (right)
talks with a Samir Mouris, Not Alone Program Associate for Coptic
Orphans.
|
Fr.
Dawood Lamey, the director of the Cairo-based Anba Abram Ministry, was delighted to see how the Anba Abram ministry fits in
with the work of other organizations in the diocese. He said to the
representatives of the other organizations present, “I have heard
of you all, but now I know you.”
While
it was important simply to learn about the work being done by each
organization, some of the most useful discussions came when participants
were able to open up and share not just successes, but mistakes made
along the way. This made for some valuable learning.
Anba
Gawargious commented to one of the participants that he believed that
this conference was a great opportunity for organizations to make
the transition from a charity model, where the poor become dependent
on organizations, to a development model in which children and families
become self-sufficient. He said that he is already telling all the
priests about the development approach so that they can encourage
service missions in local churches to address root causes rather than
encourage relationships of dependency.
At
the end of the meeting, all participants pledged to take a specific
action towards coordination of efforts. For example, some pledged
to invite other organizations to trainings so that both may benefit.
Others pledged to take the services already offered by other organizations
into account when they look for needs to fill.
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Coptic
Orphans executive director Nermien Riad (left) discusses best
practices with Fr. Dawood Lamy of Anba Abram Ministry and members
of The Shepherd and Mother of the Light.
|
Nermien
Riad of Coptic Orphans is hopeful about the ability of Coptic organizations
to come together to create real and lasting change in the communities
they serve. “We’ve accomplished the first step [in this meeting] by
establishing trust among organizations. Now we’ve set the stage for
the future steps of helping each organization coordinate their work
with one another,” she said.
