Cross-Border Friendship Continues with Relief for a Croatian Town from the Italian Scientology Community

Continuing the Croatia earthquake relief initiative, Scientology Volunteer Ministers bring supplies to help the town of Glina rebuild.

With hundreds of homes destroyed by the December 29 earthquake, volunteers from the Church of Scientology Padova returned to Croatia to help the region recover.

On their last trip in early February, when they helped reopen a local school that was destroyed by the temblor, they surveyed those affected by the disaster for what they need to rebuild. The Scientology community in Torino, Milano and Pordenone helped raise the donations and another team of Volunteer Ministers took off from Rome to take part in the latest relief effort. 

Their bright yellow Volunteer Ministers vans were joined by the white van of Grantorto, a town near the Church of Scientology Padova, whose mayor decided to take part in their venture after they briefed him on the destruction caused by the earthquake and the hardship it caused the people of the town of Glina. 

The vans were loaded with refrigerators and other kitchen appliances and needed supplies.

On return to Padova, Volunteer Minister Ettore Botter, who oversees the humanitarian campaigns of the Church of Scientology of Padova and has participated in each of the Scientologists’ Croatia interventions, organized a webinar called “To Help Croatia and Beyond,” to drum up additional support to help the people of Glina recover from this hardship. 

 

The Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers program is a religious social service created in the mid-1970s by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. It constitutes one of the world’s largest independent relief forces.

With the events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, Scientology ecclesiastical leader Mr. David Miscavige called on Scientologists to redouble their efforts to aid their fellow man. He issued a directive entitled “The Wake-Up Call,” which inspired astonishing growth within the Volunteer Minister program.

The following year, Volunteer Ministers of Italy formed Pro.Civi.Co.S, which was entered into the registry of the National Department of Civil Defense.

Pro.Civi.Co.S responded to Italy’s L’Aquila and Amitrice earthquakes, the Haiti earthquake in 2010 and the South Asia tsunami in Indonesia in 2005.

A Volunteer Minister’s mandate is to be “a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by restoring purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others.” Their creed: “A Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence. Rather, he is trained to handle these things and help others achieve relief from them and new personal strength as well.”