Quito, Ecuador - March 13-16, 2001
Statement from Fraternite Notre Dame®

At the Meeting in preparation to the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa - 2001

Fraternite Notre Dame, in its charitable works at the service of the world's most destitute persons, wherever it happens to be: in Africa, Northern or Central America, Asia or Europe, grants a privileged importance to preventing every and all kinds of discrimination.

Fraternite Notre Dame's members, who are religious missionaries and lay volunteers, were often able to assess there, in their missions, that the poorest or most destitute persons, minorities, because they are rejected, despised, weakened, considered as worthless, become easy targets for discrimination, racism and oppression, in Europe as well as in Asia or Africa.

They are unanimous in their testimony that religious, cultural, ethnical and linguistic minorities are being oppressed by groups in the majority.

What did we witness? We witnessed that major groups want to safeguard their privileges.

For instance, in certain African countries, the appointment of bishops and priests in their country of origin is not favored.

Such behavior does not allow the expression of Faith to thrive, but maintains a form of moral tutorship, instead of promoting the cultural identity of these countries. There is no reason not to accept religious minorities, as long as they do not prejudice the freedom of individuals.

Churches interfere before governments to maintain their privileges, and make sure religious minorities are properly silenced.

Fraternite Notre Dame offers more concerned attention and care to members of humanity discriminated against, from the very fact that they are weak, and it considers its assistance to their respect as an honor and a duty: when visiting numerous prisons, we realized that human rights regarding both adults and children are not implemented.

Children imprisoned as early as 7, sometimes confined as mere live-stock, in quasi mortal sanitary conditions. Police officers explained to us that they pick up dozens of kids, even when they are innocent.

Fraternite Notre Dame is listening to the daily suffering of men, women and children who starve, who experience the cold, the heat, sickness or dejection; to cite but only a few examples: in Mongolia, there are children why die from the freezing cold in the streets, or who live in the sewers, trying to get a little heat.

Women about to deliver die because they lack medical care, right outside the door of a hospital, because they cannot afford it. When one remain silent before these women's distress, one silences them, and such a morbid silence casts the blame on the people who constantly refer to human rights in words, but never through real actions.

The basic duty of the international community or a particular state is to protect children's right to live. Allowing women's universal schooling, offering them the opportunity of a job with a decent remuneration, or access to various manual or intellectual professions would contribute, in these wounded countries, to safeguard harmony in the family, and thus bring about peace within the nations.

Now, what can be said about our so-called developed countries, when jobless men and women beg for a daily meal. What a sad picture on human cruelty, in this the 3rd millennium.

Many children do not receive an education because their family cannot afford school expanses, nor pay for school supplies. How could we be at peace when we see poor people, either in developed or under-developed countries, reduced to pay for 2 or 3 hours of school teaching or for the sacraments of the church, to Christians associations?!

Fraternite Notre Dame created schools and free educational centers for orphan children. Thus, children for whom death was only a few hours or minutes away have been saved, and then properly fed and educated; they are now in good, or better physical, moral and intellectual health, in Cameroon, Niger, Haiti or Mongolia.

Education is a fundamental right for human beings, it is the key to durable development for countries.

In some African countries, Fraternite Notre Dame was able to assess how deeply rooted discrimination against girls is: they are not allowed to go to school, and are exclusively restricted to house shores. Within the familiar organization, it is common for an aunt to take one of her nieces in, to give her some education.

Then, the niece is at the service of her aunt, with the painful issue of seeing herself bartered against some animals. Certain ethnic groups reserve schooling for boys alone. The weakness of handicapped children is used abusively, when they are being placed on street corners to beg, for a living.

In Mongolia, some children die from starvation or from the cold, in the streets of the capital: it is a shame to see a religious group first preoccupied with building a place for worship, instead of coming to the help of these starving children.

Then, why should we be surprised when, some years later, these human beings, having reached the age of revolts, whatever their nationality, attempt to find their revenge, against those who refused to help them out of their distress?

Fraternite Notre Dame could voluntarily train religious people from foreign countries. Now, because there is no way to go freely from one country to another, we are compelled to abandon the idea.

Ruling groups are often the initiators of racist behaviors, an outlet to their exacerbated sectarianism towards any forms of convictions or expression different from their own, and they go so far as exercising religious or ethnic persecution, which is unworthy of democracies.

The settlement of our missions has often been threatened with extinction. To cite but one example of this: in Haiti, a group in arms, with false property titles, took possession of our piece of land, where we had started building an orphanage and a medical center. Local authorities were unable to protect our rights and return us the land, which we have lost.

Are there any solutions to this? Yes, there are some. They first come from a state of mind. It is within the heart of man that good and bad intentions are born.

In its orphanages, hospitals, schools, free soup kitchens, as in all its activities, adapted to the needs of the neighbor, Fraternite Notre Dame makes it her duty to consider each person with the same spirit, the same heart, putting herself at the service of everyone, with no distinction of class, race, sex or creed.

This is the state of mind that Fraternite Notre Dame's Founder, the Most Reverend Bishop Jean Marie Roger Kozik, insufflates to the religious missionaries of the Congregation.

This worthy heir of St. Vincent de Paul founded, and still does, various houses throughout the world, serving the most rejected members of humanity, and he makes it his duty to consider each human being with a same respect, for he wants to translate into actions the fact that each human being has a right to be loved.

This Evangelical golden rule would easily tackle all germs of intolerance, discrimination and racist behavior in minds, if governments, major groups, the media and those responsible for education would share this spirit.

Within the limits of our small material and financial means, but with a state of mind respectful of others and a boundless courage, we do contribute to tackling poverty and reducing racism; now, how much more could be performed by large, or governmental agencies, with the great means they have at their disposal!

Since we ourselves want to maintain our specific religious identity and see it survive, we do understand the difficulties to which minorities are confronted, and the importance there is to protect it. One of the essential criteria for the proper functioning of a state, is its capacity and determination to protect the rights and the integrity of its citizens.

Everybody can understand that rejecting a human being, rejecting a minority in the bosom of a nation begets in this particular minority a feeling of injustice, which is often negative and leads to discord and hatred on both sides. Revolts and fratricidal wars are often caused by too great an accumulation of humiliations and injustices.

For your final reflection, I shall end up with these few words from Raoul Follereau, the great apostle of lepers:

"Charity is a projection of Christ's Face upon the face of the poor, the suffering, the persecuted."

[End of Declaration]