Grants and Financial Support

Hampaté Bâ

Hampaté Bâ is a school for teenage girls in Niamey, Niger where the rate of early marriage, and thus, lack of education, is about 72% for young girls, the highest in the world. The Assocation Les Amis de Hampaté Bâ’s primary objective is to keep these female pupils in school. 

The “Food for Thought” program was launched in 2016 thanks to a Cathedral grant and other efforts, such as awareness raising events and a generous gift from a dedicated Thanksgiving service offering. In 2017, the school received further proof that the “Food for Thought” program is working as it keeps the girls coming to school for individual and group tutoring even while the school is being prevented by striking public school students from holding any formal classes. In a recent Niamey-wide math competition for all students in the American equivalent of 9th grade for which each school could send up to three students, two of the three students sent by Hampaté Bâ were “Food for Thought” scholarship girls. These two students placed in 5th and 2nd places in all of Niamey.

The Cathedral advocates for gender empowerment by assisting these young women to stay in school and to equip themselves for success.

Arab Evangelical Episcopal School & Episcopal Technical and Vocational Training Center

For a decade, the Cathedral has maintained a significant working relationship with both the Arab Evangelical Episcopal School (AEES) and the Episcopal Technical and Vocational Training Center (ETVTC) at Ramallah, in Israel’s West Bank. The schools are an obligatory stop off for parishioners participating in our Holy Land Pilgrimages.

There is a steady growth of the student population at AEES. The school plays a central role in the lives of students and their families and is “need-blind” in its enrollment policy.

ETVTC enables young adults to receive technical and vocational training and skills. The program develops their confidence and self-esteem, and permits them to enter a job market that seeks their skills set, and more importantly receive good compensation.

The Cathedral has funded various projects for both schools, from the construction and maintenance of their facilities, to scholarships, curriculum training, and materials.

Joel Nafuma Refugee Center Breakfast Program

The Joel Nafuma Refugee Center Breakfast Room is run from one of our own Convocation parishes—Saint Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church in Rome. It is a day center for refugees with services ranging from urgent/immediate basic assistance to settlement services. Staff and volunteers accompany guests in their struggle to rebuild their lives through ongoing Italian language classes, the provision of a healthy breakfast and basic supplies, art and psychotherapy programs and legal support.

JNRC’s breakfast program serves an average of 97 asylum seekers and refugees per day. In 2017 alone, 20,408 breakfasts were served. The Center believes in empowering recipients by using funding to employ them to shop for and prepare the food.

Our relationship with the JNRC fulfills humanitarian objectives in our mission to respond to the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe.

Sisters of Charity

Mother Theresa’s Sisters of Charity live at 62, rue de la Folie Méricourt, in the 11th arrondisement of Paris. They are eight sisters who run the Foyer des Femmes, a home for homeless women and children. They care for 32 to 40 women, many of whom have just had a baby and are directed by the French Social Services, spending a few months there before being sent on to another lodging.