In a video “To the least of my brothers” Mt 25,40 Father Pedro OpekaCM says…
“When I arrived I could not shut my eyes to utter destitution. I saw a 1,000 children struggling for survival among the animals in the garbage dump … I was dumbstruck. … I said to myself , “Here I could not just talk. I had to act!” He went to meet them and promised them: “Together we are going to get out of this mess!”
And so it was that, with no money but with faith in God and no end of sheer hard work in communion and fellowship, Father Pedro and the unwanted of Antananarivo founded the “Akamasoa” Association (which means”good friends” in Malagasy).
Today, among other things, they have built 18 villages entirely with their own hands, bringing together 20,000 people: an authentic community in which everyone is respected and is learning to take responsibility for his or her own future. If God works miracles, He is certainly doing so here! Thousands of lives have been saved and 5-7,000 people each Sunday celebrate in what some would call a mega Church based in a garbage dump This film takes us to Madagascar, a large island in the Indian Ocean, to meet Father Pedro and his Madagascan friends. Originally from Slovenia, Father Pedro is an Argentine priest, who belongs to the Lazarist Congregation of Saint Vincent de Paul and has been a missionary in Madagascar since 1970.
After 15 years living in the middle of nowhere in one of the most deprived villages on the island, he arrived in Antananarivo in 1989 and found it impossible to close his eyes to the misery of the families and children living in the vast rubbish dump nearby. Father Pedro made a commitment to God and took action! He went to meet them and promised them: “Together we are going to get out of this mess!” And so it was that, with no money but with faith in God and no end of sheer hard work in communion and fellowship, Father Pedro and the unwanted of Antananarivo founded the “Akamasoa” Association (which means “good friends” in Malagasy). Today, among other things, they have built 18 villages entirely with their own hands, bringing together 20,000 people: an authentic community in which everyone is respected and is learning to take responsibility for his or her own future. If God works miracles, He is certainly doing so here! Thousands of lives have been saved and are blossoming as they have found their dignity restored!
Another site Pedro Pablo Opeka – Missionary of the “garbage people” in Madagascar tells the story integrating how people can help.
- Early life
- Mission in Madagascar and Creation of Ak…
- The most urgent projects to support
- Photo Gallery
- Try thinking how important your gift is….
- How you can help
- Trailer for the documentary film
- He said:
- A Chance for Charity
- Father Pedro Opeka news
- Follow Friends of Father Pedro
- Madagascar products on eBay
On several occasions, Fr. Pedro Opeka has been proposed as a candidate for for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has been named “Knight of the National Order of Madagascar” (1996), awarded the Legion of Honor from Slovenia (1996), appointed as an Officer of National Order of Merit in France (1998), Missionary of the Jubilee Year, in Italy (2000), and awarded in the United States for his humanitarian work (2001).In 2009 Opeka received the Golden Order for Services, which is the highest national decoration of Slovenia The Slovenian Foreign Ministry nominated Slovenian missionary Pedro Opeka for the 2012-2013 King Baudouin African Development Prize, citing his “extraordinary humanitarian work and care” for people living in rubbish dumps of Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo.
Pedro Pablo Opeka (born June 29, 1948), known also as Padre Pedro or Father Pedro, is a Catholic priest from Argentina of Slovene descent, working as a missionary in Madagascar. He exemplifies a new type of missionary: not someone committed to converting and preaching, but someone fully dedicated to the poor, helping them to build their future. For his service to the poor, he was awarded the Legion of Honor.
He first arrived to Madagaskar in 1972 when he was 23 where he worked as a bricklayer in the parishes of the Lazarists. In 1989, his superiors nominated him director of a seminary in Antananarivo, the capital. But when he saw the dump from the hills of the city, he discovered people rummaging among garbage to find something to eat and sleeping in huts made of hemp propped between mountains of waste. Pedro Opeka began talking to them, to convince them that they could leave that misery and abuse. This is how Akamasoa (“good friends” in the local language) started.
Today Akamasoa sustains twenty thousands people, nine thousands children, of which seven thousands go to school, namely, four thousands families. Houses have been constructed, as well as schools, clinics, and centres for training and production. Jobs have been created, thanks to the stone and gravel quarries, to the craft and embroidery workshops, to a compost centre next to the rubbish tip to divide and sort the rubbish, to the jobs in agriculture and construction (bricklayers, carpenters, cabinet makers, operators and street pavers).
Tags: Akamasoa, Featured, Madagascar, Opeka
