The first two parts of this story introduced Vincentians Awakening Talents and showed how it is growing into a community of service, formation, and belonging for about 45 vulnerable children in Nacarôa. As parents became more involved and the children developed a stronger sense of identity, a simple practical need emerged: uniforms for the group. With families unable to afford them, the Vincentians began searching for a sustainable way to raise the necessary funds—and that search led them to bamboo.

In the Words of Joi Bernardo Cardoso, SSVP Mozambique:

We are members of the Saint John the Evangelist Conference of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Nacarôa, Nampula Province, and we would like to share an experience that has helped us understand once again what it means to live the Vincentian charism.

Our Conference is responsible for Vincentians Awakening Talents, a project we began on March 3, 2026. Today, approximately 45 children participate. They include orphans, displaced children, children from vulnerable families, and others whose lives are marked by serious social and economic difficulties.

Through the project, we want them to discover that their circumstances do not define everything they can become.

The children participate in dancing and cultural activities, agriculture and vegetable production, visits to the sick, social activities, and Vincentian formation. At the same time, we are trying to find ways for the project to become increasingly sustainable.

One of our immediate dreams is very simple: we would like the children to have uniforms—matching T-shirts that help them feel that they belong to the same group.

Their families want to contribute, but many simply cannot afford to do so.

Faced with this reality, we decided that we could not remain idle. We needed to look for another way.

Bamboo grows locally in our area, so we decided to explore whether it could become a source of income for the project. If we could gather bamboo and sell it, perhaps the money could help us provide the uniforms and respond to some of the children’s other needs.

So last Friday, members of our Conference set out into the bush in search of bamboo.

We walked approximately 31 kilometers to reach the place where we could collect it.

We left at around 1:00 in the afternoon and arrived at approximately 10:00 at night.

It was a long journey. There was tiredness and difficulty along the way, but there was also fraternity. We walked together with a purpose. Every kilometer reminded us why we had left home in the first place.

During those days, we managed to collect approximately 1,000 pieces of bamboo.

At first, that felt like a major achievement.

Then we faced the next problem.

We had the bamboo, but we had no way to transport it back.

For the moment, the 1,000 pieces remain at the site where we collected them. We have been asking for help and looking for someone who can provide transportation. We have now been told that we need to supply 30 liters of fuel, at a cost of 3,540 Mozambican meticais, for the transport to take place.

We do not currently have that money.

So once again, we are searching for a solution.

Our hope is to find someone willing to help us obtain the fuel, perhaps through an agreement based on trust. If we can transport the bamboo and sell it, we can repay the fuel cost. Then what remains can be used for the children’s uniforms and other needs of the project.

It has become a chain in which every step depends on another:

first the bamboo, then the fuel, then the transportation, then the sale, then repayment, and finally the possibility of helping the children.

For someone looking at this situation from a place where resources are easily available, 30 liters of fuel may seem like a very small obstacle.

For us, right now, it is the obstacle standing between 1,000 pieces of bamboo and what those pieces might make possible.

Yet this experience has taught us something important.

Being Vincentian does not mean that difficulties disappear.

It means that difficulties do not automatically make us stop.

We have learned again that the Vincentian charism is not lived only in words, meetings, celebrations, or formation sessions. It is lived while walking. It is lived through work and sacrifice. It is lived when brothers and sisters face a problem together and keep searching for a response.

The bamboo itself is not the most important thing we brought from this experience.

What remains with us is the fraternity of the journey and the conviction that a Vincentian should not simply look at a need and say, “We have nothing.”

We must also ask, “What do we have? What can we do? Who can we ask? What is the next possible step?”

Our mission is still unfinished.

The bamboo has not yet been transported. The fuel has not yet been obtained. The uniforms have not yet been purchased. We cannot tell this story as if every problem has already been solved.

But perhaps that is exactly why it is worth telling.

Vincentian love does not magically produce resources. It does not make poverty disappear. It does not make transportation free or turn bamboo immediately into money.

What it can do is move people.

It can make us walk 31 kilometers.

It can make us work together.

It can make us knock on another door after the previous one has remained closed.

It can teach us to trust, to create, to serve, and to continue looking for possibilities when the easiest answer would be to give up.

And this is what we want the children themselves to learn.

We want not only to awaken talents, but also to awaken hope. We want to show them that they have abilities, dignity, and the potential to help build a better future.

Our journey continues.

May Saint Vincent de Paul inspire us to serve with humility and courage. May Saint Louise de Marillac teach us to recognize Christ in those we accompany. And may Blessed Frédéric Ozanam remind us that faith becomes credible when it takes the road toward those who need us.

Perhaps this is our answer to the question that began this story.

Can Vincentian love find a way?

We have not reached the end yet.

But we are still walking.