Article published by the Global Sisters Report

As the conversation around ill and aging members of women's religious communities continues worldwide, a monthly information exchange between Catholic sisters in Nairobi, Kenya, and Mexico City is making a tremendous difference. 

Previous similar models focused on India via the Rome-based International Union of Superiors General, or UISG, and considered dementia care in the United States via the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, or LCWR, and UISG. Now this third initiative meets via a monthly Zoom session facilitated by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, known as CARA. It focuses on health disparities, and closing the gap between larger international communities which have European or U.S. ties for resources and support, and Indigenous communities, which do not.

This focus on Indigenous identity among smaller congregations is what makes it special. Unlike a typical historical model where sisters from international congregations would travel in to live and work as foreigners, these sisters grew up in the communities they now study. The motherhouse is right there, not thousands of miles away. As trained partners studying their own home regions, they can be far more effective in assessing and meeting practical needs of senior sisters.