U.S. Catholic relief agency puts focus on African orphans

Published: 2004-08-25

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Jim Cavnar, president of a Catholic relief organization founded three years ago, knew about the growing number of orphans in Africa due to the AIDS pandemic, but didn't realize just how pervasive this was until he visited Mozambique last year. Nearly everyone he met there was either involved in caring for orphans or had had a family member die of AIDS. The sheer number of children without parents amid such devastating poverty might have put Cavnar's organization, Cross International Catholic Outreach, at a loss for where to begin. But that was before he and other team members met Olinda Mugabe. Mugabe, a registered nurse and mother of three, has dedicated her life to helping her country's AIDS orphans. Six years ago, she founded a ministry to care for orphans through a network of volunteers that make weekly home visits to see that the children and their extended families had the food, clothing and medicine they need. The ministry is named Reencontro -- Portuguese for reunion -- because it began six years ago at a reunion of Mugabe and her former Catholic school classmates.

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