Marco Carvalho
The idea is not exactly new but should gain institutional recognition in the near future. The parish of the Church of Our Lady of Fatima, which is located less than 300 meters from the new Qingmao border post, wants to formalize the creation of an activities center for children with special educational needs. The aim is to provide a solid answer to a “new form of poverty”.
The parish of Our Lady of Fatima is trying to obtain from the Macau authorities a proper tutoring service license, so that the activities center, that it sponsors, can provide holistic support to a larger number of children and young people with special educational needs.
“We offer an after-school service aimed at children with special educational needs. Our aim is to lend a helping hand to children who need this kind of support. And it is something that helps the families a lot. This kind of service is what builds the community,” says Father Michael Zhang, the new parish priest of the Church of Our Lady of Fatima.
Named after the little shepherd children of Fatima, the after-school activities center, ‘Three Little Shepherds’, came into being due to the volunteer work that was conducted in Our Lady of Fatima parish by the sisters of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. Faced with an increasing number of students with special educational needs, the parish wants to professionalize the services it offers and reach out to a greater number of children and youth: “Even before I came to the Fatima parish, there were already sisters who volunteered to come here after school. A Franciscan Missionary of Mary came to this same place to care for the needs of the students. This nun retired just over a year ago, just before I came here last year. The parish aims to continue the work she was doing,” Father Zhang, who is also a missionary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, states. “Things, of course, are now done in different circumstances and in a different setting, but the idea is to focus more on special education needs. I am also the chaplain for Saint Joseph (Number 5) School, next door. There is a huge population of special education students in Saint Joseph School and also in other schools as well. And this is also something new. A couple of years ago, the Education Bureau asked Macau schools to provide support to these students, but their needs are so overwhelming that the schools are still not able to fulfill many of the needs of this population,” the missionary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word adds.
The main focus of the Three Little Shepherds activities center is to help the schools of Macau’s northernmost neighbourhoods to cope with an increasingly evident challenge. The center currently provides assistance and support to twelve students, but in the future it wants to reach out to many more children and youth.
“Legally speaking, we are still trying to get the license, so the center is not yet official. It is not easy to get this done nowadays, but we will try to get a proper tutoring service license, so that we don’t have any trouble,” Father Zhang clarifies. “Now, we are conducting our work according to the existing limitations. We are still legal, but we are doing this under the arrangements and the numbers defined by the government. We cannot lend a helping hand to many children. We are currently limited to twelve students. So, we have two spaces for two teachers, and they are entitled to take care of six students each. Once we get the licence, we will open and officially accept more students who need this sort of service,” the priest maintains.
“A new form of poverty”
The initiative is one effort more to give an answer to what the young parish priest of the parish of Our Lady of Fatima sees as a “new form of poverty”. Father Zhang bewails the fate of dozens of families who have been caught in deplorable circumstances and live a dual, hopeless life, crossing the border several times a day. “People tell me that there are no poor people in Macau; everyone has food, has a place to live and has clothes. But we have many dysfunctional families. There are families that live in China and have their life here. We have parents that have to go across the border multiple times. They live in Zhuhai and, to take care of their kids, they have to come to Macau multiple times a day. It is not just one time and go back. Some of them, they have four young children, and they all come out of school at different times,” the missionary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word told O Clarim. “I know a case of a person who has to cross the border six times a day. You cannot imagine how disruptive this is. These people are in need of so much help. In that sense, they are very poor, because they cannot live their life in a normal way. They have to take care of their children. I realised these people are poor, not because they don’t have money, but they are poor because their situation is helpless. Maybe, in a way, they don’t understand how to take care of their children or maybe they have an emotional problem, some difficulties in controlling their emotions or ADHD. There are different kinds of situations, but for me these are the poor nowadays,” Father Zhang says.
With family roots in neighboring Hong Kong, Father Zhang was appointed parish priest of Our Lady of Fatima parish by Bishop Stephen Lee Bun-sang earlier this month. Formerly an architect, the young parish priest is a devotee of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and is currently the only representative of the Institute of the Incarnate Word in the Macau Special Administrative Region.
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