Mater Farm
Mater Cyber World
Mater Pharmacy

MATER FARM PROJECT (Food for the People)

Mission Statement:

To establish and position Mater Farm Project, Ahiara Diocese, Mbaise, as a foremost viable and profitable company, providing increased food, training and employment opportunities to the teaming population of Mbaise people, ensuring that the company's activities are carried out within the widely accepted Catholic doctrine and morality, as well as, to enhance the spiritual and social well being of the people as good citizens of Nigeria and the world.

History:

Mater Farm Project took off officially on the 3rd April 2002 with only a poultry section and a stock of 2000 day-old chicks (pullets) under the leadership of two Priest animators and two workers. A year after, the stock rose to 3000 pullets and 300 broilers. Within the same year, other sections like pig breeding and fishery were added. Today, the poultry has in stock, 5000 laying birds and 500 growers. Other sections have been added. These include turkey, snail rearing and guinea fowls. A plantation of high-yield banana species has been developed. With a well-developed irrigation network, crops like maize, okra, and pepper, are produced all year round. All together, there is in place, an integrated agricultural system whose farming methods are fast being absorbed by the diocesan population.

Impact:

The Project has made a mark in cheap food production for the teaming population of Mbaise people. There is steady supply of eggs, fish, snails, banana and maize, all through the year. The lastest impact is in the area of introduction of training programme for the local farmers. These farmers have been organised into groups and taught different aspects of modern agricultural practices to enhance self-sustainance and employment. Click here for pictures of some sessions.

Contact:

Rev. Fr. Rowland Ugo (Director)
Email: materfarm@yahoo.com

MATER CYBER WORLD Making the world a global sitting room

The ongoing revolution in communication has been of great interest to Church leaders around the world who are always on a lookout for ways to help the Church become more relevant to the time in which we live.

The bishop of Ahiara Diocese, Most Reverend Doctor Victor Adibe Chikwe, has been one of the pioneer bishops in Nigeria, and perhaps in Africa as a whole, in the employment of the latest instruments of communication to enhance the spread of the good news.

It is this passion of his that has manifested in the founding of Mater Cyber World. Bishop Chikwe sees the Internet as a means of communication with incredible potentials for the good news. Therefore, as a man imbued with immense foresight in the use of communcation gadgets, he could not resist making it available to the Christian faithful of his diocese.

In his travels across Europe and America since the early 90s, Bishop Chikwe has become increasingly aware and appreciative of the benefits of a responsible use of the Internet in expanding the range of choicese available in diverse spheres of life, such as, broadening educational and cultural horizons, breaking down divisions and promoting human development in a multitude of ways. It is his personal knowledge along this line that encouraged him to make the Internet available to the rural people of his diocese.

Bishop Chikwe's vision is that through Mater Cyber World the people of Mbaise would not be left behind in the ongoing revolution in Cyber Space which he conceives as a Global “SITTING ROOM” for the proclamation of God’s kingdom. He believes that with the extension of the Internet to a rural setting like Mbaise one would record great strides in the injunction of Jesus to preach the gospel "to the ends of the earth".

MATER CYBER WORLD is equipped with industrial-sized equipment such as, a C-band V-sat with 2.4m dish, 128kbps upload and 192kbps download. It has two sections - the internet phone section with four-port telephony equipment and a browsing section with 25 PCs working, with four full-time workers at the services of customers.

Email: matercyberworld@yahoo.com

MATER PHARMACY

In view of the peculiar problems of the people of the diocese, Bishop Victor Chikwe, who shepherds about 492,545 people in a terribly deprived area of Imo State, Nigeria, is intent on making sure that his people do not die cheaply as a result of curable diseases. Especially since Government-owned hospitals and good drinking water are not easily available in the rural diocese of Ahiara, Mbaise, he has embarked on providing his people with clean water from boreholes as well as some quasi medical outfits such as pharmaceutical stores with resident pharmacists, clinics, maternity homes, medical centers, etc., to help alleviate the acute problems of healthcare delivery in the diocese. In view of this fact, Bishop Chikwe will always appreciate efforts in cash or kind from people of goodwill to help him upgrade and perhaps standardize the medical programmes of the diocese.

Meanwhile, the diocese has its own pharmaceutical store called Mater Pharmacy. It is hoping to increase the number of such facilities in the diocese in the coming years.