Mission

The “Mission humanitaire Dr. Elaine Martel” (Humanitarian Mission Dr. Elaine Martel), was created with the goal of helping those who live in conditions of extreme poverty.

In October 2007, I participated in my first humanitarian mission that was led by “The Austin Diocese Medical Mission”, at La Gloria, in Mexico. It was there that I came face to face with the realities of extreme poverty. On site it was easy to identify the many urgent needs of these people. It is for this reason that I was motivated help this village and begin the first mission project.

La Gloria is a bidonville that regroups 125 families and has a total of approximately 500 people. This community is neighbored by two other bidonvilles having similar populations and density statistics. Geographically, La Gloria is situated north of Mexico on the outskirts of an industrial city called Saltillo that has a population of about 650,000.

The main objective of the current project of the mission is to finance the construction of a multifunctional center. This center could have many functions from school studies, spiritual and cultural activities, provide a community kitchen, to sanitary facilities, all under the same roof. The choice of the site on which to build the center is very important. We have chosen to build it between the three colonies, so as to permit all of them to benefit from its resources, as well as reunite the people.

During the medical mission in 2007, the team members had the pleasure of meeting Father Wandrille. He belongs to the religious order, that is called in Spanish, “ Juaninos”. They are affiliated with the Catholic congregation called Saint-Jean-Baptiste, that originated in France. Father Wandrille lives within the community of La Gloria and was very helpful of informing us of the needs of this population. We are pleased that he has generously accepted to coordinate the construction of the multi-functional community center. It will be built by the habitants of the bidonvilles on a volunteer basis. The supervision of the construction will be done by the residents of a neighbouring community, Casa San Juan, who have already built their own center and have acquired the technical experience to accomplish the project.

Since the supervision and the labor will be done by volunteers, the money raised by the mission will be primarily used for the purchase of materials required for the construction.