Caritas Internationalis Secretary General Dr. Aloysius John on February 22 visited Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Caritas Asia President Dr. Benedict Alo D’Rozario and others accompanied John on a six-day-long (till February 26) visit to Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country.
It is John’s third visit to Bangladesh.
The Caritas team visited refugees at Camp-4 and Camp-4 Extension in the world’s largest settlements for the Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMNs) in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.
During the visit, John spoke to the FDMNs and inspected the interventions of Caritas Bangladesh under the Emergency Response Program (ERP) that has been going on for FDMNs since the massive influx in 2017, said a press release.
The Caritas official visited activities at Multipurpose Children and Adolescent Centre (MCAC), shelter construction and Water and Sanitation Hygiene (WaSH) interventions in the camps.
The executive director of Caritas Bangladesh Sebastian Rozario, director of programs James Gomes and project director Marcel Ratan Guda were also present during the visit.
Caritas Bangladesh, a church-based development agency of Catholic bishops in the country, started working widely for Rohingya people in Cox's Bazar since the massive influx in August 2017 through providing shelter, food, and non-food items including site improvement, WASH, Protection, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), and education in 12 camps of FDMNs in Ukhiya Upazila in Cox's Bazar.
Besides, Caritas Bangladesh has been executing several activities for the refugees.
John also made a courtesy call to Archbishop Bejoy N. D’Cruze of Dhaka and President of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh at Archbishop’s House in Ramna, Dhaka.
John will also visit some projects of Caritas Bangladesh.
Caritas, a Latin word, means "charity" or universal love.
Caritas was founded in 1967 as the eastern branch of Caritas Pakistan.
Following the cyclone of November 1970, it was re-organized and became known as CORR (Christian Organisation for Relief and Rehabilitation) and took on the character of a national organization on January 13, 1971. The name Caritas was re-introduced in 1976.
Caritas Bangladesh has its central office in Dhaka, the country’s capital. There are eight regional (or diocesan) offices in Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka, Dinajpur, Khulna, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, and Sylhet.
Caritas is operational in integrated development, disaster management, and human resource development, under central management in all these places.
Caritas restricts itself at present to 208 ‘upazilas’ (sub-districts) for integrated human development work.
During emergencies, such as natural disasters, Caritas is operational in any part of the country.
Caritas Bangladesh is a member of the Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of 165 Caritas member organizations in over 200 countries and territories.
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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