If I would be asked to give Caritas a human face, I would give it a woman’s face. We do not need to do a serious research to find out that the majority of care workers in Caritas are women. It is just visible! At the same time, research has shown that the majority of ...
Address: Klostera iela 5, Riga, LV-1050, Latvia
Telephone: +371 2955 2102
Email: info@caritas.lv
Facebook: Caritas-Latvija Twitter: CaritasLatvija
www.caritas.lv
Caritas Latvia was founded by the Latvian Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Churches in 2004. It had been operational since 1990 as a relief organisation within the Catholic Church in Latvia, but it had no official recognition from the Bishops’ Conference. Today, it is part of the international structure of Caritas Internationalis and Caritas Europa.
Caritas Latvia’s mission is to promote the Caritas network among the Catholic population in Latvia, as well as to fight against poverty and social exclusion, for example, by working with migrants and refugees. Our soup kitchens provide food to poor families, people with HIV/AIDS and the homeless.
Caritas Latvia programmes also pay special attention to children and youngsters with special needs and their families, in order to help them better integrate into society (projects, summer camps, sports, family meetings once a month, etc.)
Caritas Latvia promotes voluntarism to empower youth and instil confidence in them, so that through social service they can make a difference in their communities.
In 2005 Caritas Latvia joined the Equal Project “Step by Step” initiated by the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs in Latvia. Caritas Latvia’s task in the project is to develop asylum seekers’ skills in order to help them integrate into Latvian society and enter the job market. The Equal Project was Caritas Latvia’s first serious encounter with the migration problem in Latvia. Since then, working with asylum seekers and irregular immigrants has become a priority for Caritas Latvia.
Caritas Latvia’s main office is in Riga, and employs staff and volunteers who serve four diocesan Caritas and public social institutions located throughout Latvia.
Caritas Latvia is one of the more than 160 members of Caritas Internationalis, and is also a member of Caritas Europa.
To improve former prisoners’ integration into society, Caritas Latvia collaborates with the Prison Chaplain Service on the organisation of educational seminars for volunteers, and working on development of the volunteer network in this specific field.
Updates from Latvia
Two years after the beginning of the war and nearly a decade after the conflict in the east of the country, the humanitarian situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate and will not improve if hostilities do not stop. This is the picture described by the two local Caritas organisations – Caritas Ukraine and Caritas-Spes Ukraine ...
Once upon a time, in a country where laughter mingled with tears and hope shone even in the darkest of times, there lived a little Ukrainian girl named Milana. Milana was a funny, pretty girl with sparkling eyes that held galaxies of curiosity and wonder. Her infectious laughter echoed through the corridors of the Caritas ...
This project, in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, offers 800 children and an additional 200 parents from socially precarious and economically disadvantaged backgrounds help and support, in coping with everyday life every year and now more important than ever. At the beginning of the war, many of the project beneficiaries fled to other parts ...
Yasmine Halalish lives in Aleppo with her husband, Fathi Moustafa, as the stepmother of three children: Raneem, who needs special health care, Tasneem and Mouhammad Moustafa. Their birth mother died. Please tell me about the time after the earthquake. Did you receive any aid? «We did receive aid from Caritas Syria: canned food, hygiene kits ...
One year after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on 6 February 2023, local Caritas organisations, supported by the entire Caritas network, continue to support the local population in dire need. In Turkey, the National Caritas, together with Caritas Anatolia, supported by Caritas Istanbul and Izmir, have been active from the first moments, ...
We could finally afford to live in the house of our dreams. It was outside the centre of Homs, the family home, big and spacious. After years of hard work as a teacher, my husband had saved enough money to renovate it. I was happy, finally our children would have enough space to grow up happy. ...
As the Armenian Caritas is already present near the border to assist evacuees leaving Nagorno-Karabakh, the international confederation mobilises funds and calls all parties to respect human rights. As of today, over 60,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh have fled to Armenia following a nine-month long blockade of the region and last week’s military intervention. Caritas Internationalis ...
Torrential rains that affected the area of Thessaly in Greece in early September lead to devastating consequences in all disaster-affected zones and villiages in Volos, Pilion, Trikala, Karditsa and in the Thessalia plain region. A week after the devastating floods, the amount of mud damage to thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses has increased ...
“Russia’s attack on the Caritas-Spes Ukraine warehouse in Lviv last night, destroying 300 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the people of Ukraine, was an outrage and a flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law,” states Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis Alistair Dutton from New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly and where Ukrainian ...
Caritas Europe Info
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