On February 9, 2021, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia, Mr. Janez Janša, proposed Father Pedro Opeka as a candidate for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, 2021.
Father Opeka is 73 years old this year (1948), his parents are Slovenians who immigrated to Argentina after the second world war. Father of Saint Vincent de Paul, known as Lazzariste, has been a missionary in Madagascar since 1975. During the first 15 years there, Father Opeka lived with farmers, working both in the rice fields and with five human religious. Slovenia and learn Malgache. Here, I applied the ideas of Bishop Hélder Câmara, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife in Brazil, to be close and help the poor.
Later, due to poor health, Father Opeka was called by his superior to the Madagascar capital, Antananarivo, to undertake the training of the novices of the order. But then he began to spend time with the marginalized in the capital, who had to sleep on the streets and find shelter in suburban garbage dumps.
Gradually, Father Opeka founded the Akamasoa community, which means "Community of Friends" in the local language, to help the poor overcome poverty, injustice and social exclusion, to have a peaceful life. worthy life. Pope Francis visited this community on September 8, 2019 during his apostolic visit to Madagascar.
The Akamasoa community currently consists of 18 villages, where former homeless people and their families live in more than 4,000 brick houses, children and young people are fully educated from kindergarten to university and vocational training. difference. Akamasoa has three hospitals, six clinics, four maternity facilities and 18 sports fields. Thanks to the efforts of Father Pedro Opeka and his collaborators, more than half a million poor people have been helped.
In addition, Father Opeka also established other educational institutions in Madagascar, which today are run by state agencies. Father also teaches young people to respect nature, strongly supports the planting and protection of forests because deforestation in Madagascar is widespread.
During his visit to Akamasoa, the village of friendship, on the afternoon of September 8, 2019, Pope Francis met with 8,000 young people here along with their parents. “This village has a long history of courage and mutual support,” he observed. The people here are the result of years of hard work. At the root we find a living faith, expressed in concrete actions, capable of moving mountains. A faith that sees possibility where one sees only uncertainty, hope where one sees only inevitable fate, life in so many heralds of death and destruction. break...
The Pope also urged the young people of Akamasoa village never to give in to the painful consequences of poverty, never to yield to the temptation of an easy life or to cower in... meeting, he also visited the nearby Mahatazana quarry, where 700 workers worked.