Society of St Vincent de Paul, Pakistan

The Society of St Vincent de Paul first reached the shores of Karachi (British India) in 1869. The first Conference was the St. Patrick's Conference. The St. Lawrence’s Conference was the second.

Until 1960 this had grown to just 4 conferences in Pakistan: 2 in Karachi, 1 in Sialkot and one in Rawalpindi. With the advent of the Twinning Scheme in the 1960s the number of conferences increased from 4 to 22. The Twinning Remittance of a few Australian dollars was invaluable to Vincentian work.

With the formation of the National Council in 1973 efforts were made to contact all the Dioceses of Pakistan and the total number of conferences in Pakistan grew to 323. The total number of Vincentians at the last census was around 3000.

There are one National Council, one Diocesan Council and 13 regional Councils. The National President since 1973 has been Valentine Gonsalves from Karachi.

The Regional Council of Karachi maintains a home for the aged named Saint Vincent de Paul because the Society were the initiators of this project 50 years ago. This project depends on funds received locally as well as from abroad for its existence.

The Society in the Punjab started the Pakistan Literacy Project in 2005 with the help of the Society in Australia. This program goes to areas in Pakistan where students were denied schooling. The program has three aims:

• Providing basic education to students.
• Providing employment to teachers who do not have work.
• Assisting students who are away from home because of their family situation and need special tuition. For $1500 Australian a teacher can give basic education to students while they wait for a chance to go to a "real school".

Doug Walsh, National Project Officer of St Vincent De Paul Society, Australia, recently visited the project.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul conference in the Holy Rosary Parish, Madina in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Faisalabad, also does fundraising to pay the fees of the children in the parish.