In the shoes of Mother Theresa!

Irish SVD makes an impact in Ghana

 

Fr. Andrew Campbell SVD poses with some of the students of Tema Secondary School after they had presented foodstuffs and other goods to the cured lepers at their home in Weija near Accra. Andy has become known nationally for his defence of, and support for, the people with, or cured of, Hansen’s disease in Ghana.

The children of the St. John Bosco Basic School, Tema, appreciate all that Fr. Andy has done for their school.

The Holy Family Sisters working in Kordiabe with Fr. Andy Campbell are from left to right: Srs. Vinij, Annie Elvina, Therese Nithaya and Lucy Dhannya. They work in health, education and pastorally. They all hail from India.

The two homes being built for the mid-wives at the Kordiabe Clinic with the help of Ireland’s Misean Cara.

Pictured at the headquarters of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority are from left to right: Fr. Bernard Kyei, Mr. Oscar Cudjoe, (Public Affairs Manager of the Authority) and Fr. James Ahenkora. The two diocesan priests work in Tema parish with Fr. Andrew Campbell SVD.

This is Fr. Andrew Campbell’s unique contraption for breeding talipia fish in the dam built by the people, young and old, at his Kordiabe out-station. It is made by setting several 44 gallon drums as floats, draping a very large net over them and securing it all. All is then anchored to the bottom of the ‘lake’. The fish fingerlings are placed in the net and left to grow. They are fed fish-meal by hand several times a day until they in turn can be eaten.

This is the title of an article which appeared in the Ghanaian newspaper, The Spectacle, written by Ms. Merari Alomele. She wrote, " today, there is a notable personality we can refer to as "Fr. Theresa" of Ghana. He is the Rev. Father Andrew Campbell who is also known as Nii Lamptey”. She writes that "since the age of 24 he has denied himself all the pleasures and comforts of life to help the poor, sick and distressed in various parts of Ghana. For the cured lepers at Weija, near Accra and Ho, he is a messiah, their Alpha and Omega".

Andy, who comes from Ballyfermot, Dublin, was ordained in Donamon on Oct. 20th, 1970. He arrived in Ghana in June of the following year.

Since that time, he has worked in the parishes of St.Peter's, Osu; the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit; the Sacred Heart, Derby Avenue, Accra, and presently in Tema, the port for Accra, which is about 30 miles to the east of the city.

During his time in Ghana Fr. Andrew has contributed a lot to the building up of the infrastructure of the church in the country. He has built a vocational school for the youth of Accra’s inner city. He has built a magnificent parish hall in Tema, which is used for sports, theatre, table-tennis, parties, classes, for laundry and much more. He has also built in the parish grounds of Tema a chapel of Adoration where there is daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from 5.00am until night.

Recently, he re-developed the splendid St. John Bosco Basic School in Tema by building a double-story block with many more class-rooms. It includes a computer laboratory with 45 computers and a lovely library which has many fresh and interesting books for the children.

Remarking on the success of the school, the headmistress Mrs. Vida Adorkor, said that it is now the best equipped school in Tema and in 2008 all of its forty five grade nine students went on to Secondary schools. Fr. Andrew considers it important to include sports facilities in his parish grounds for the youth. It is not surprising then that the Tema Good Shepherd parish volley-ball team emerged as overall champions at the recent Deanery Easter picnic.

Fr. Andy, as he is affectionately known, has also been instrumental in building a permanent chapel, a fine clinic and a convent at Kordiabe, a distant rural outstation. The clinic includes a laboratory for investigating malaria and a mother and child centre. Four Indian sisters of the Holy Family Congregation run the clinic and work in the local primary school where they are much valued. At present, Fr. Andy is building two permanent houses for the mid-wives attached to the Kordiabe clinic with funds from Misean Cara. At the other end of the village of Kordiabe, is a dam which he built several years ago with the intention of trying to keep the young men on the land.

The community was concerned at the time with the drain of its young and able-bodied people from the land to the city. The dam is used for irrigation and for breeding talipia fish This fish-project is done by hanging a very large net over several 44 gallon drums which are anchored in the dam. The fish are contained within the netting and are fed daily by a villager. The dam is also used by the village women to do their laundry while the men wash their cars there. In a place where there is no rain for many months of the year, this dam is a vital resource!

Fr. Andy is a very well known face around Accra and in Tema. Everywhere he goes, dressed in his white cassock, he is recognised and greeted by the people. At police check-points he is greeted by the police with "hi fada! I saw you on the News last night" or something like that. Drivers, passing him in the traffic, call out to him in greeting as they drive by.

When Fr. Andy wants to do something for his beloved lepers, or for the youth or for the poor he goes to the top! Doors are opened to him! One week recently, he shown on the TV news receiving donations of food and toiletries from the students of the St. Rose's Secondary school for his beloved cured lepers in Weija. During their educational visit to the homes of the cured lepers, he helped the young people to understand that there is nothing to fear from holding hands with cured lepers while there is a lot to fear if we abandon the poor and disabled out of fear!

A few days later, his face was in all the newspapers. This followed the presentation of a new microscope by him to the Princess Marie Louise Hospital for sick children, in Accra, of whose Board he is the very active Chairman. At that same function he also announced plans for the construction of a modern operating theatre and other facilties in the grounds of the hospital. His influence can be seen throughout the hospital especially in the ward named after him and in the two sculptures in the grounds which state that they were unveiled by him. One of those sculptures honours Jamaican pediatrician Cicely D.Williams who in this hospital identified and named in a 1935 Lancet article, the protein deficiency known as Kwashiorkor. The word comes from the Gha language of Ghana.

As always, Fr. Andy could not do all that he does without the assistance of others. He is indebted to the help of the Ghanaian, Irish and Italian people. His betteroff parishioners have become aware of their obligation to assist those less well off than themselves and do so. He invites different corporate bodies, such as hotels, the harbours board and the members of Government to assist the lepers and the poor according to their means. Misean Cara (Irish Aid), the Apostolic Workers of Ireland and friends in Ireland have also been of enormous assistance to him over the years. His has also been assisted on a regular basis by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in a small town near Venice in Italy, over many years.

On another level, Fr. Andy is blessed in his ministry by the support of many people in Ghana. His two young priest companions, James Ahenkora, Bernard Kyei and seminarian, Steven Kofi help him to look after the pastoral needs of the parish and its outstations. His pastoral teams animate the liturgies and the gatherings of the parish. The teachers in his schools, his friends in different walks of life, his staff, the Archbishop, the SVDs, the various communities of sisters all contribute to making the Kingdom of God become a joyous reality through his ministry in Ghana. For his work in Ghana Fr. Andrew has been conferred with the Order of the Volta by former President Jerry John Rawlings. On the occasion of Andy's 30th anniversary of ordination the president wrote: ‘Please accept my personal thanks and congratulations for your devotion to the well-being of the needy and deprived in Ghana. Your work for lepers and the urban youth has inspired many to support your efforts".

He was honoured as the Foreign Personality of the Decade in a ceremony in 2005. At the same ceremony, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the U.N. was also honoured. He has been honoured for giving blood-donations and he is an honorary life-member of the S.O.S. children’s organisation in Ghana for his work in aid of children over many years.

Cork SVD influences Ghanaian Priests

Pat Moroney SVD buys smoked fish at the side of the road to Wiaga.

Pat Moroney SVD  poses with the staff of St. Lucy’s clinic. He and the Archbishop of Tamale are trying to procure funding to build a boundary wall around this clinic.

 

Way up in the north of Ghana there is a city called Tamale! It is about 15 hours from Accra by motor vehicle. It is in a dry and parched land. The city is justifiably proud of its new and gleaming white Chinese-donated football stadium which was opened last year for the African Cup.

Tamale is the location of St. Victor’s diocesan seminary (which belongs to the bishops of the northern region of Ghana) and of the SVD’s Freinademetz house of philosophy and its Common Formation Centre for SVD theological students. For many years, Patrick Moroney SVD from Cork, has ministered in these institutions as both leader and teacher. Wherever one goes in Ghana, bishops and priests will tell you about Pat ‘the hard worker’, ‘the dedicated missionary’, ‘the man of great faith’, ‘the good rector’, ‘the man of good example’ and ‘the faithful religious’. Above all, Pat is known as the ‘Philosophy teacher’! Currently, Pat is the rector of the SVD Freinademetz house for Philosophical formation which has about 20 students and two staff members. They are from Ghana and India.

Pat was ordained at Donamon in 1976 . He has been in Ghana since 1978. He studied at Cork’s North Monastery, at Donamon, Maynooth, Mater Dei (Dublin) and Louvain. In addition to teaching philosophy to the seminarians and looking after the SVD students Pat is also the chaplain at the Carmelite Sisters Convent nearby. They pray for the Church of Ghana and for the seminarians in formation. Pat is loved and very much appreciated by them. Pat is truly a man of the people. He shares their lot in many ways. This is all the more so when it comes to living the simple way of life of the people which is part and parcel of northern Ghana. While things like milk, sugar, butter and the like may be hard to come by, for Pat their absence is just ‘an inconvenience’.

During Lent this year, his students undertook, of their own accord, to abstain from eggs, margarine and other items and to donate the monetary equivalent to the poor in their neighbourhood. It makes one wonder just how much more simple he and they could become?

Fr. Pat Moroney SVD has contributed much to the building up of the church in Ghana by training bishops, priests and missionaries, many of whom are now working around the world, during his 32 years in Ghana.

Long may he continue to do so.

Source: The HARP March - April 2009 - Irish / British Province Bulletin SVD