The Solidarious Heart Day is a campaign for an increased awareness, participation and collaboration whose main aims are: to spread in the OAR ministries the social works of the Order, to pray for the poor and those in need and to help financially the projects and activities of the Order through an annual Sunday collection.
This was promoted by the Prior General himself in his letter under protocol 103/105 addressed to the entire Augustinian recollect family and the ministries of the Order. In this letter Miguel Miro deemphasized that the “augustinian heart is a solidarious heart” and at the same time he asked to remember “the sensitivity that they had with the poorest of St. Augustine, St. Nicholas of Tolentine, St. Thomas of Villanova, St. Ezekiel Moreno and among others from our exemplary religious”.
The Prior General, exhorted in the said letter that in each country common social work will be promoted which, assisted human and financially by the religious and the laity, could make a meaningful response of the solidarity of the Order.
The NGO of the Order, Haren Alde, which has been responsible in organizing and putting into reality this Day, offers to all the parishes and ministries of a parochial/ sacramental type of the augustinian recollects and the materials in three languages for the joint celebration of the Solidarious Heart Day. Besides, this Day is also thought of to celebrate, with different activities, in schools and educational centers the preceding or following week of November 8.
Two solidarious projects of the Order
For this year the Day is dedicated to the projects of the OAR family: one is for the awareness and integral knowledge of the Human Rights in the neighborhood of El Polvorin de Caracas and the other is for the rights of women, especially in the area of health, in the Philippines.
The neighborhood of El Polvorin de Caracas is one of the worst victims of the socio-economic situation that Venezuela is experiencing. Through the Communitarian Center Of St. Jude Thaddeus of the augustinian recollects, the project intends to bring about a series of sensitization and educational conferences on Human Rights in order that, from the personal knowledge of one’s own rights, the people can demand the realization, protection, accompaniment and the improvement of its fundamental abilities.
The second project will be focused on health and the social development of women through various services that include gynecology and sexual health and the physical and psychological welfare. The religious of the Siervas de Maria, who are actually responsible of the center St. Ezekiel Moreno within the wider social project Handumanan of the Augustinian Recollects in one of the densely populated neighborhood and the less fortunate of the city of Bacolod, are the ones responsible in bringing out this project.
For a year the project will offer medical and gynecological services especially for women, with a special attention to pregnant women and infant mothers between the ages 17 and 40 years of age. The local community will provide medical specialist and nurses and everything necessary for the real implementation of the specialized attention of women in the region.