I would like to thank the Mission Fund for a donation of €2,500, of which €500 are for Mass intentions and €2,000 to subsidise biblical and religious material in Santali language, the language of the largest tribe in India, the Santals.

I have been in India for the last 60 years and, after my priestly ordination, I have been working most of the time as parish priest among the Santals. Santal Parganas is the homeland of the Santals but, forced by poverty, the Santals have migrated to many other northern states in India and settled there. The Santal Catholics are now spread out in 17 other dioceses and these in the diaspora rely on us from the homeland to give them biblical and religious material in Santali.

For the last few years, I have been put in charge of this ministry of religious publications. Early this year, we reprinted another 10,000 prayer books and 10,000 hymn books, apart from some other religious books. We shall soon have to reprint the altar lectionary in Santali in three volumes, which total 3,000 pages.

Due to a rise in tax and more expensive paper, the cost of printing has this year increased dramatically. As most of these poor people cannot afford to buy such publications even at cost price, we have to subsidise them. The donation received from the Mission Fund will be used for the purpose mentioned above.

I would like to encourage the Maltese people to send used stamps and donations to the Mission Fund, which is helping so many Maltese missionaries in Third World countries.

Donations can be made online or by direct bank transfer to one of the following accounts: HSBC (account no. 061 197 448 050), Bank of Valletta (account no. 163 007 980 19), APS (account no. 200 008 207 62) or Banif (account no. 000 879 631 01).

More information is available from their website www.missionfund.org.mt.