Campaign Añatuya

At the lower Rhine, next to the frontier with the Netherlands, between Kleve and Kranenburg, there is the 3000-souls-village Nütterden. In Northern Argentina there is a diocese which with it’s 68,000 square kilometres is as big as the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg together - the bishopric Añatuya. Since 1974 a partnership between Nütterden and Añatuya has been existing. Since 2004 the parish in Mehr takes part, too.

Añatuya is located in Northern Argentina in the province Santiago del Estero and about 1.000 kilometres away from the capital Buenos Aires. In the bishopric live many underfed children. There is an incredible high share of analphabets. The drinking water provision is catastrophic, too. The ground is partly contaminated by arsenic and saltpetre. For months, it doesn't rain; and if it rains finally, this happens in such extents that huge parts of the country are flooded, bridges and streets are destroyed and the thin fertile layer of earth is swept away. Wells and fountains are necessary. The physical care of the people is extremely bad. There is hardly work. The family's fathers must often move all over the country with their relatives to find work as wandering reapers (they are called "swallow workers") or at the production of charcoal, in which they not only contribute to the clearing and burning of the original woods but what also often means that they go blind after a while.

In 2010 it was 25 years that the St. Georg elementary school Nütterden has been engaging itself for a school near the city of Añatuya. Since 2011 the donations are sent to two very poor schools in the parish San José de las Petacas in Boquerón which each have about twenty students.

Medicine, child food as well as building material are particularly missing for houses with a solid roof in the fight against the fatal Chagas illness which is transmitted by Vinchuca bugs which nest in the thatched roof and the loam walls of the Ranchos and of which many of the inhabitants of Santiago-Del Estero are affected in the diocese Añatuya.

A permanent action of the parish St. Antonius Abbas is the collecting of the carol singers since 1975. More than 90,660 euros from Nütterden and 9,190 euros from Mehr (as in 2013) were already transferred for poor people (especially for children) in the diocese Añatuya. The money goes to the "Kindermissionswerk" in Aix-la-Chapelle which then forwards the donations to "action medeor" in Tönisvorst to secure the supply with drugs for the diocese of Añatuya.

The main focus of the “Aktion Añatuya” lays on the allocation of donations to build cisterns for drinking water, solar collectors and simple stone houses.

You can help "Aktion Añatuya", too:
Account: Aktion Anatuya Nütterden
BIC: WELADED1KLE
IBAN: DE 33 3245 0000 0005 6309 00
The parochial office will give donations receipts if desired (please indicate complete address).

For further information and ideas contact:
Hans-Jürgen Jacobs, Tel.: 0049(0)2826-7639, E-Mail: simondavid@t-online.de.