Winner of alumni-sponsored prize brings health to Amazon villages
Dr John Cox
Editor, Reflections
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia
An honouree of the Avondale Alumni Association has led another team of students on a One Mission project — this time to build toilets in northern Brazil.
Odailson (Dada) Fialho, who received the Alumni Association’s Community Service Prize this past year, led the team on a seven-week trip around South America, helping to provide improved water and sanitation to remote villages. The team worked with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), the humanitarian organisation which has been offered financial support by the mayors of two districts in Brazil.
The ADRA project has improved health and sanitation in some of Brazil’s most remote villages, where water-borne diseases are a major cause of illness and death. Teams from the Avondale College of Higher Education student club One Mission have worked with ADRA over the past three years to build 49 toilets, a classroom and a health clinic. Villages in surrounding districts have appealed to ADRA to do the same for them.
The 27 students on this year’s team raised $35,000 for building supplies, as well as $5000 each for airfares and other expenses. Preceding their work on the health and sanitation project, the students visited Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile and Peru. From Peru, they travelled for several days down almost the full length of the Amazon River, first in a small boat, then in a larger boat they shared with 500 passengers, sleeping each night in hammocks on the open decks. At a port on the lower Amazon, they met ADRA staff members, then boarded a mission boat for a seven-hour trip back up the river to the area where they were to work for the next three weeks.
Mission trips such as these have real challenges. The Amazon is infested with alligators and piranha. There are dangers from snakes, ants and malaria-bearing mosquitoes. There are the challenges of living in primitive conditions, coping with an unfamiliar diet and managing tiredness. And there are dangers from the tools the group uses, such as chainsaws and machetes. But no student has suffered a serious illness or injury during any One Mission trips.
Team leader Dada describes the trips as bringing positive changes to the lives of many of the students. “The trips also motivate significant numbers of students for future leadership roles,” he says. Three students from the Brazil team have already volunteered to lead future mission trips.
Dada, a Brazilian, came to Avondale to learn English, but stayed on to complete a degree in theology and ministry. “I am grateful to Avondale for the opportunities it has given for mission service, especially to my home country,” he says. Being involved in One Mission “is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”
“I want to thank everyone who has prayed for us. And I want to thank Avondale for encouraging and supporting One Mission.”