She lights up lives that have lost their luster

Maria Victoria “Marivic” Sta. Ana was a carefree seven-year-old thriving in their family-owned sugar plantation in Negros Occidental when she realized she wanted to become a nun. In the early ‘80s, she was sent to Manila to a non-sectarian school to ascertain if she really was sure of her vocation. She was also encouraged to go to the disco and even have male friends! But the focused Marivic took up social work and it cemented her desire to be a nun and so she followed her heart’s inner voice. Today, she is a Salesian nun.

She makes many believe there is a Christmas.

Carla (not her real name) was seven years old and living with her father, a drug addict, and mother, a prostitute, when she was picked up from the streets by government social workers. She had to be hospitalized before she could be turned over to a home for abused children because she had been violated by 16 men, lined up in two rows, in the bushes.

Carla didn’t believe in Christmas.

***

Sister Marivic and Carla were born a generation and a world apart but they were brought together by a caring God. One found her mission — to heal bruised young lives so they can take control of their destinies and find their true calling. The other found her purpose — to live again despite the cruel darts that rained on her childhood.

Sister Marivic is the executive director of the Laura Vicuña Foundation (LVF), a Manila-based NGO working with some of the Philippines’ most vulnerable children. (Laura Vicuña was a Chilean teenager who was abused by her mother’s common-law husband. She offered her life and her sufferings for her mother’s conversion. Laura was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1988.)

Sister Marivic and some other Salesian nuns run a home for sexually abused girls aged seven to 18 in Cubao, Quezon City, gluing the jagged pieces of the girls’ broken lives so that they can be whole again, and glow again, like beautiful mosaic lamps.

“The situation is getting  even more alarming. More and more children are not even safe in their own homes and the victims are getting younger.”

With tears welling in her eyes, Sister Marivic  recounted to me the unspeakable experience of a three-year-old who was gang-raped by teenaged drug addicts and the agony of a recovered sexually exploited young mother whose three-year-old daughter was raped by her 17-year-old cousin. She says that abuse is like a cesspool that festers within some families.

“When children like Carla come to you, you should allow them to express themselves and believe their stories. They need to be loved and listened to. You should accept them and help them forgive themselves so they will regain their self-worth,” says the haciendera-turned-crusading nun.

According to Sister Marivic, the Philippines is faced with the serious problem of 60,000 girls being sexually exploited and trafficked. 

***

Last Dec. 15, Sister Marivic, on behalf of the Laura Vicuña Foundation, flew to London to receive the 2012 Asia Pacific STARS Impact Award in the Protection Category. The foundation was chosen out of 302 shortlisted from over 1,000 NGO applicants. 

She received the award from STARS founding chairman Amr Al-Dabbagh in ceremonies at Kensington Palace. Former US President Bill Clinton, who was supposed to attend, cancelled his trip at the last minute because his wife Hillary suffered a concussion. To date, through its flagship Impact Awards, STARS has supported 40 charity organizations.

Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Enrique Manalo attended the dinner to honor the awardees at The State Apartments at Kensington Palace and the awards night at The Orangery at Kensington Palace.

Each year, a top prize of $100,000 (£62,000) of unrestricted funding is awarded to six overall winners, including the Laura Vicuña Foundation of Sister Marivic.

In receiving the award, Sister Marivic said, “This is not only a great accolade to the foundation and to the Salesian sisters but also to the Philippines as this is the first time a Philippine NGO was given an award by this prestigious body.”

The Laura Vicuña home for girls has a multidisciplinary team made up of in-house social workers, a psychologist, a psychiatrist and teachers. At present, the home has 20 residents. Good Samaritans like Marissa Concepcion, wife of businessman Joey Concepcion, and her children and their friends have been volunteering at the home for years now.

Aside from the shelter for sexually abused girls, the Laura Vicuña Foundation runs outreach programs including a “child protection clinic on wheels,” which tours the slums and rural areas where many of the children come from, teaching communities how to protect their young and prevent sexual abuse, and providing medical services to about 800 children a week. It also runs scholarship and employment schemes, and provides outreach to some of the millions of child laborers.

“While I was in London, I had the opportunity to tell His Excellency Amr Dabbagh why the mobile protection unit is so effective. We want to extend the reach of that unit to child laborers working in the sugar cane industry. These children are highly at risk from hazardous labor, from trafficking and from sexual exploitation. Taking a second mobile unit out into the plantations where these children are is the only way that we can intervene now and offer them protection,” she adds.

***

Why did Marivic Sta. Ana leave a life of comfort and luxury to live a spartan life where she must stomach the horrors of man’s cruelty to the most defenseless of all human beings?

“I want to be there for those who need me most,” Sister Marivic says. For her, and for the other hardworking Salesian sisters of LVF, those who need them most are the girls who need healing from the horrors of sexual abuse. She believes their lives can be lit up again, sharing many proud stories of sexually abused girls who have overcome their trauma and are bravely rebuilding their lives.

“They are the real stars of our lives and our foundation,” Sister Marivic says.

And their glow lights up her Christmas like a giant parol in the dark sky.

(Sister Marivic Sta. Ana may be reached at [email protected].)

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)