Mags GarganMags Gargan chats to the National Secretary of the Society of Missionary Children
April Fool’s Day is perhaps not the best day to start a new job, but this did not deter Jackie Pallas who joined World Missions Ireland (Pontifical Mission Societies) on April 1, 14 years ago, feeling that she had finally found where she belonged.
“I felt like all my life I was in the wrong place,” she says. “I felt like I was put there – like the Lord said ‘Jackie, you’re in the wrong place’ and picked me up and said ‘there now, that is where you should be’.”
Jackie originally worked in the accounts department but became very involved with the work of Missionary Children, eventually working side by side with the National Secretary, Sr Majella McCarron and taking over from her when she retired in 2005.
Missionary Children encourages children around the world to pray together for each other and for children living in poverty. It also encourages children to share whatever they can, no matter how little, to help with the material needs of children in need.
The society’s motto is ‘Children Helping Children’ and each year it helps more than five million children in thousands of projects scattered throughout the developing world.
Prayer
For Jackie this involves writing newsletters, providing resources for schools, preparing liturgies, visiting schools, preparing for Mission Month and organising the National Day of Prayer which has become an annual fixture in the school calendar since 2007.
“Children love to pray for people and it’s lovely to hook into the prayer dimension of their school day,” Jackie says.
“We also do a First Communion Friends liturgy which is all about getting children in Ireland who are preparing for First Communion to look outwards to children in the developing world who are also preparing for First Communion and find out what that involves for them – do they have the big white dress, do they have a party, is there a big fuss made over them? And sometimes there is and sometimes there isn’t.
“It shows Irish children the difference. It is not a fundraiser, and the only thing we ask them to do is to remember the children all around the world who are also celebrating their First Holy Communion during the bidding prayers at their ceremony.”
As part of her job Jackie has been on a few mission trips to visit projects supported by Missionary Children and found this to be an incredibly eye opening experience.
“It’s lovely to do the mission visits because you can have an idea in your head that the children you are helping are not happy. It’s lovely to see them smiling and so glad to welcome and to give you what little they have,” she says.
“One little girl in a school gave me her boiled egg, which was her entire lunch. I looked at the teacher shaking my head no, that I can’t take this but the teacher said you have to or she will be really upset – that was her way of welcoming me and saying thank you. They are very generous with anything they have. I found that everywhere I went – people are so happy to give you a little of what they have. It was a very humbling experience.”
Founding
Last week the Society of Missionary Children celebrated 171 years since their founding by French Bishop Charles de Forbin-Janson in France. The society has been active in Ireland since 1853 and spread throughout the world with children participating in over 100 countries around the globe, making it the oldest and largest children’s charity in the world.
Jackie says it is wonderful that the society was started in “the heart of a young child”, as Charles de Forbin-Janson was first inspired to found the charity after being deeply affected as a young boy by stories from French missionaries of the distress of children in China abandoned in the streets, and she describes the society as a “circle of spirituality for children”.
Missionary Children helps children of all faiths and the society emphasises that all money raised by the children goes to the approved projects, and regular reports show how the projects spend the donations.
“In Ireland we would normally support five countries a year and in each country there would be anything up to 12 projects, but normally there are five or six, which range from schools to inoculation programmes for babies, nutrition programmes or accommodation. Sustenance of life you could say – it encompasses everything,” Jackie says.
“We are not looking after the children you see on TV – the tragedies or victims of catastrophe. We are looking after the children who are struggling every day to have a future – struggling to go to school, struggling to stay alive, just struggling.”
Jackie says her job is very fulfilling and she is always touched by the generosity of Irish children. “I have often been in a school where children would come up and you would feel a little tug at your leg and they hand you money they had for sweets after you tell them about the children in the developing world. They are very empathetic.”