2020 RED CANDLE PACK
One of the first stopovers of the 2019 Villanova AFAS boys was the famous Basilica del Sto Nino in Cebu. They have the privileged of visiting the priory of the Augustinian fathers, seeing the original Sto Nino image (dating 500 years old) and lighting red candles during private hours. These happened when the Basilica del Sto Nino is closed to the public on a Friday night. The next day, they were sent to the candle factory where these candles were made from scratch.
The Basilica of Santo Nino de Cebu, Philippines.
The Basilica is the spiritual centre of the Philippines, where pilgrims flock to pray and ask for blessing on their simple, and often hard, living conditions. Often their prayer takes the ritual form of purchasing and lighting a candle in solidarity with those around them. The candle burns, its flame flickers in the breeze and its red wax melts. The pilgrim stands in silence seeing his/herself as vulnerable as the red candle and as dependent on God as the candle is dependent on its maker and the wind.
This photo below, taken in 2019, shows Villanova College 2020 Vice-Captain Tadgh O’Neill, in a candle factory outside the city of Cebu, in the Philippines.
Who benefits from the funds raised in Red Candle Week?
Students like ‘Muscles’. Villanova AFAS students first met ‘Muscles’ in 2017 when he led a gang of boys to assist mixing concrete. He had dropped out of school. But he has shown the AFAS students that he was keen to study and become a better student if only he has the financial support. This picture was taken in 2019 when ‘Muscles’ was back at school but sometimes had to sleep in the tricycle cab he stands beside. He kept transferring from poster family to another because his was from a broken family. His smile speaks of the hope he has inside to find a new life through education and supportive community.
She only wants to be a normal child like the other children around her.
This child who is scheduled to have surgery on her cleft pallet, made possible through AFAS.
This young woman who was able to complete her education to Year 10 because of AFAS. Subsequently she managed to establish her own business: a fish stall in the open markets in her home town of Murcia. When some members of the group were strolling in the market place, she called their attention and told them the story of her life being a scholar of AFAS and how grateful she was for the support that AFAS has extended to her school community. There are more less privileged students who are willing to study and hoping to get out of poverty through education. AFAS always helps.