Herzegovinian Franciscans started with the construction of a dorm for students in need, a soup kitchens and the Centre for Dialogue in front of the Franciscan monastery of St. Peter and Paul in Mostar almost two years ago, and so far more than 3,000 donors helped this socially important project for Mostar, Herzegovina and the whole country.
Project manager Fr. Iko Skoko said that the Franciscan monks were thinking of what would be most appropriate for friars to build.
“Considering that we friars started with schooling and the University of Mostar, and since education today has become expensive, we returned to our original dimension to help the students. Since we have homeless people in town, we wanted them to have at least one hot meal a day, so hence the idea of a soup kitchen next to the student center, and then, given the fact that the facility is located at the place where the war took place, for us Franciscans, it was important to create the Center for Dialogue. These are the three main fields around these areas of the construction of this major project that we called ‘Dompes’, which is the abbreviation for ‘Domus panes et spiritus’ (House of bread and spirit),” said Fr. Iko Skoko.
They are currently carrying out work on the roof and exterior facade. Fr. Iko believes that these works will be completed by Christmas.
So far, more than 3,000 donors from Mostar, Sarajevo, Odzak, Travnik, Vitez, Livno, Banja Luka, Croatia, Europe, the USA and Australia, helped the project. The names of all donors are published on the portal http://www.dompes-mo.com. The action was joined by Vecernji List, by launching again Christmas campaign “Give Them Home”, and this time the goal was to build one room and thus help the construction of the student dorm in Mostar.
“Some donors gave their last BAM in the last month. Children of the Primary School Cerin gave up their sandwiches and donated money for this project. Altar servers of the church of St. Peter and Paul gave up hot chocolate and they donated 22 BAM! For all donors is worshiped Holy Mass every Saturday in the monastery church of St. Peter and Paul in Mostar at 6 pm,” said Fr. Iko, noting also the financial support of Croatia and the different levels of government in BiH.
Anyone interested to financially help this building, can pay their donations at the Franciscan Monastery of St. Peter and Paul, UniCredit Bank Ltd Mostar. no. account number: 3381302232342778; or foreign currency account: Franjevacki samostan sv. Petra i Pavla, SWIFT: UNCR BA 22, IBAN: BA39 3381 3048 3234 3194; UniCredit Bank, Kardinala Stepinca bb BiH, 88000 Mostar.
(Source: klix.ba)
