Volunteers serving with Logos Hope aim to share knowledge, help and hope wherever they go. As part of sharing hope, an event about social justice took place on board the vessel.
Social justice pins down several topics, such as poverty, human trafficking, HIV, the environment and gender issues. Logos Hope’s teams often focus on the first three issues. In conferences and workshops, individuals are grouped to work together as they consider solutions to various problems crewmembers give information on.
Camila Matos (Brazil), who oversees the running of the social justice events, explained that her team wants to listen to the people who attend and the suggestions they offer. She finds that this is a way to encourage them to do something: they interact with and motivate each other.
“Many of them take care of homeless people and are aware of the difference between relief, rehabilitation and development; which demand different kinds of responses. This helps them see that all they do, they do alone. If they work together, they can be more effective,” Camila explained. She watched attendees in Antofagasta exchange contact details to connect further, and expressed her joy – since this is one of the objectives of the event.
The team based some of the event on a Bible passage from the Gospel of Luke 4:18-19: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
A Brazilian woman who works with Operation Mobilisation in Chile, Anny Julie De Padua, attended the event, wanting to learn more about human trafficking. “Human trafficking is happening here,” she said. “At the end, a man took everybody’s contact details. People didn’t want to just ‘know’ but also to ‘do'. Human trafficking is the second biggest kind of trade in the world. We have to do two things: pray, and unite. We can all take part.”
“Take justice and the problems in your society seriously,” encouraged Camila. “Don’t stay in your comfort zone; look around and pray. We were called to be agents of change. Everything is written in the Bible and we can see it is in God’s heart.” Camila revealed that, just as she has learnt to be passionate about social justice, she hopes others can also see the importance of caring with prayer and action.
