What a day! Today, on the second day of the FHA conference and – more importantly – the day of the Miraculous Medal, Sr. Danièle Kogel welcomed our participants back with a wonderful spiritual reflection. Three different workshops on: 1. Vincentian values in our work; 2. Inculcating systemic change and 3. Planning a 13 Houses Project and then got our guests talking about their work and what more must be done both on local, regional and global level. We also had the pleasure to listen to experts on two keynote panels with the first being chaired by Roseanne Haggerty and the second by Graham West: Matthew Carter (CAFOD, UK), Fr. Vitaliy Novak, CM (Depaul Ukraine) and Clara Ines Diaz (AIC Colombia) painted a vivid picture of their work with refugees and internally displaced people. And Kerry Anthony (Depaul Ireland), Sr. Bridgit Kerosi, DC (Kenya), P. Ricardo Cruz, CM (Project Color Esperanza, Peru) as well as Dame Louise Casey (IGH, Chicago) discussed the challenging subject of Street Homelessness. You probably can imagine that this resulted in many lively discussions during lunch and break times – who wouldn’t feel moved when hearing that millions of people are in such desperate need of help? After people had a moment to catch their breath and reflect, we then invited them to participate in a diverse set of workshops ranging from “Modern day slavery and homelessness” (Kevin Hyland OBE, Mick Clarke), over “Using data to end homelessness” (Fr. Aidan Rooney, CM) to “Coordinated emergency relief within and beyond the Vincentian Family” (Ana Maria Escaño). This second day then finished with a true “parade” of FHA conference guests to Chiesa del Collegio Apostolico Leoniano where we celebrated the Miraculous Medal Mass. We are already starting to be a little bit sad that tomorrow will be the last day as there just are so many more inspiring stories to be heard!

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