2010

Opus Prize Winner
Sr. Beatrice Chipeta
Lusubilo Orphan Care Project
Karonga, Malawi

Sr. Beatrice Chipeta, a Roman Catholic nun and retired school teacher, is the founder of Lusubilo Orphan Care Project, an NGO operating in the Karonga district of Malawi. In the rural villages she serves, every family struggles to find food and shelter, and nearly every household has lost loved ones to HIV/AIDS. Thousands of children have been orphaned, and Sr. Beatrice is devoted to empowering each village to improve their quality of life, and to ensure that every child is nurtured and loved.

Lusubilo manages a massive food distribution and infant formula program, instructs mothers on the importance of nutrition and proper child care, and organizes support groups for grieving family members. A dramatic effort is underway to improve agricultural production so families can become self-sufficient. Young people attend education programs, teenagers and adults learn a trade through vocational classes, and individuals are trained to assume the mantle of leadership. Sr. Beatrice’s staff also cares for 380 orphan-headed households where adolescent orphans are cared for and learn life skills and leadership to help care for their younger siblings.

By prayer and by example, Sr. Beatrice encourages each village to celebrate and promote life, and to nurture every child God has placed in their care.

Opus Prize Winner
Rev. John Halligan, S.J.
Working Boys’ Center
Quito, Ecuador

In 1964, Fr. John Halligan, a Jesuit priest from the Bronx, New York, invited a group of shoeshine boys to join him for lunch in the attic of the Campania Church in Quito, Ecuador. Within weeks, he was overwhelmed with young boys who worked the streets to help their families survive, and who were hungry not only for a decent meal, but also for the compassion and guidance from a priest who had their best interests at heart.

Fr. John soon realized that if he was going to impact the lives of these shoeshine boys, he would need to work with their entire families. He recruited Sr. Miguel Conway and later Sr. Cindy Ann Sullivan, Sister of Charity nuns, to share in his ministry at the Working Boys Center (WBC). Over time, they developed a comprehensive approach to lift entire families up and out of poverty.

Each year, the WBC transforms the lives of 400 of Quito’s poorest families. The program provides food, shelter, healthcare and a variety of social services. Children go to school and teenagers and adults are trained to become some of Quito’s most competent carpenters, furniture makers, welders, beauticians, bakers, auto mechanics, seamstresses, etc. Every family is required to save toward the purchase of a plot of land and to help other families build their home. Young and old gather to raise their voices in prayer and song each day.

Through Fr. John’s commitment over 46 years, more than 30,000 individuals and 6,000 families have been lifted out of poverty. His unwavering faith is exemplified by his belief that “…if God wants this work to continue, God will provide.”

2009

$1 Million Opus Prize Winner
Aïcha Ech Channa
Association Solidarité Féminine
Casablanca, Morocco

Aïcha Ech Channa is something of an icon in Morocco when it comes to human and civil rights for single mothers and their children. For more than 30 years, she has been their defender and public spokesperson. In 1985, Ech Channa founded the Association Solidarité Féminine in Casablanca to provide services for the unmarried and their children. She started in a basement and now operates three day-care centers and training schools, two restaurants, four kiosks and a hammam (fitness center and spa). More than 50 women receive training every year in cooking, baking, sewing and accounting. Participants are also provided daily child care, counseling and medical treatment. As a Muslim, Ech Channa is inspired by a sense of justice rooted in the value systems of all religions. "For too long," she says, "single mothers have been stigmatized, had their babies taken away. The baby belongs with the mother, and we have hundreds of cases as evidence that this can work."

$100,000 Opus Prize Finalists:

Sister Valeriana García-Martín
Asociación Hogares Luz y Vida
Bogotá, Colombia

Father Hans Stapel
Fazenda da Esperança
Guaratinguetá, Brazil

2008

$1 Million Opus Prize Winner
Marguerite “Maggy” Barankitse
Maison Shalom
Burundi, Africa

Maggy Barankitse formed Maison Shalom or, “House of Peace,” in 1993 as a safe haven for children and orphans, including children soldiers, who have survived civil unrest and violence in the war-torn country of Burundi. Located in central Africa, Burundi has a long history of ethnic strife between the Tutsis and Hutus. Only recently did Burundi emerge from more than 12 years of civil war, leaving 300,000 dead. Since its beginning, Maison Shalom has grown into a multi-functional service agency including a hospital that has helped in the healing and support of 30,000 young people and families. Maison Shalom is centered on education, health, vocational training and reconciliation and strives to change the lives of children to better the lives of all Burundians.

$100,000 Opus Prize Finalists:

Michael Woodard
Jubilee House Community & Center for the Development of Central America (CDCA)
Nicaragua

Krishnammal Jagannathan
Land for Tillers’ Freedom (LAFTI)
India

2007

$1 Million Opus Prize Winner
Brother Stan Goetschalckx
AHADI International Institute
Kigoma, Tanzania

Brother Constant Goetschalckx, F.C., founder and director of AHADI International Institute, Tanzania, leads this organization with a Swahili name that means “working toward the fulfillment of a promise.” AHADI educates refugees from the war-torn countries of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi by providing post-secondary training via a distance-learning program and instruction for 26,000 students per year studying for their high school diplomas.

$100,000 Opus Prize Finalists:

Father John Adams
So Others Might Eat (SOME)
Washington, D.C.

Homeless People's Federation Philippines
Rev. Norberto Carcellar representing the Homeless People's Federation
Quezon City, Philippines

2006

$1 Million Opus Prize Winner
Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann
Pastoral da Criança
Curítiba, Parana, Brazil

Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann, a pediatrician who founded and leads Pastoral da Criança (the Pastoral of the Child), an innovative public health program that works with more than 265,000 volunteers to help poor families in her native Brazil, will receive the third annual Opus Prize in a Nov. 8 ceremony hosted by the University of Notre Dame.

$100,000 Opus Prize Finalists:

Sister Ann Kendrick
Office for Farmworker Ministry
Apopka, Fla.

Father John Foley
Cristo Rey Network
Chicago

2005

$1 Million Opus Prize Winner
Rev. Trevor Miranda, S.J.
Reach Education Action Programme (REAP)
India

Rev. Trevor Miranda founded and runs a system of 450 literacy centers in India known as the Reach Education Action Programme. Students discover an oasis of opportunity that stands in stark contrast to the bleak factories and garbage dumps in which they otherwise would be forced to work. REAP has also grown to include training programs for women to learn valuable professional and life skills and to develop the conviction that they can be agents of social change in their families and communities.

$100,000 Opus Prize Finalists:

Dr. Juliana Akinyi Otieno
Kisumu, Kenya

Rev. William Wasson (deceased)
Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos
Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

2004

$1 Million Opus Prize Winner
Monsignor Richard Albert
Helping Hands for the Poor, Inc.
Kingston, Jamaica

In 1976, Monsignor Richard Albert arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, from the Bronx, NY. Intent on breaking the vicious cycle of poverty in Jamaica, Msgr. Albert has spent 27 years establishing a vast network of charities and institutions that provides Jamaica's poor with the basic services and skills that have transformed the lives of thousands.