Charity Activities

Thanks to Fr. Cor for his overwhelming knowledge of our people, our communities and our shores, his enquiries about an old time friend of his (ex priest Timothy Bobongi) paved way for our first community. The Mataniko river mouth community (better known as Mamana Wata) has two major settlements located there, one on each side of the river bank. This area is well known in our history books as the first landing place of spanish explorer, ‘Alvaro de Mendana’, upon which he found some gold and eventually named our Islands, “Solomon Islands”, thinking that this was where the great biblical King Solomon obtained his gold from. Years on from this historical landing event, gone are the treasures and instead a small fishing village was established on this same shoreline and over the years with people migrating into the Capital city ‘Honiara’, Mataniko river mouth has grown into two very large squatter settlements one on each side of the estuary. On the eastern end well known as , ‘The Lord Howe settlement’, named after the place of origin of its settlers (Lord Howe, an atol archipelago in Northern Solomon’s) and on the western side of the estuary ‘The Mamana Wata’ settlement, where Timothy Bobongi resides at till his passing on to the afterlife in 2016 and where we decided to visit and donate food rations to.

This community consists of an estimated 150 tin shack houses tightly weaved amongst each other with an approximate population of around 1000+ people . Each shack, housing at least 5 people or more. Most of the settlers have no formal employment which only means no steady income as well and a majority of their children also lacking basic formal education. We were lucky enough to identify a respected individual of the community ‘Chief John Phillip’, who assisted us with scheduling and organising the distribution of food rations. Apart from that we were also fortunate to meet up with the wife of the late Timothy Bobongi and convey Fr. Cors sympathy for her loss as well. We distributed some basic food items , (rice, canned tuna, tea, sugar and noodles) plus bathing soap and washing powder of which they gladly received and sincerely thanked the Bridport Catholic Parish. Cheif John asked us to convey their love and easter greetings to the kind men and women of Bridport who gave their heartfelt support to his Mamana Wata Community. We left their dwellings thinking, ‘how on earth will they share these limited food rations amongst themselves?’, but also realising with God nothing is impossible. “5 Loaves and 2 Fish”.