Year Joined MKLM: 2000 Country: Kenya City: Mombasa Focus: Education & Healthcare Project(s): AIDS Orphans People Served: 350 children and youth; 120 families Project Goal(s): To ensure that no child orphaned by AIDS is deprived of basic education because of lack of fees. Help AIDS orphans stay in school

Personal Data
Coralis is originally from the Philippines. Before joining MKLM in 2000 she lived in San Francisco, CA. She raised five children and worked as an administrator. She was active in St. Cecilia Parish, Diocese of San Francisco. Coralis graduated from Maryknoll College in the Philippines.

Current Ministry
Coralis is originally from the Philippines.  Before joining MKLM in 2000 she lived in San Francisco, CA. She raised five children and worked as an administrator. She was active in St. Cecilia Parish, Diocese of San Francisco.  Coralis graduated from Maryknoll College in the Philippines.

The project operates in six parishes and provides the volunteer services of 400 healthworkers (who belong to the parish small-group faith communities). They identify the orphans, bring them to the attention of the project and assist in the monitoring of the orphans after their acceptance. The program provides school fees/books, uniforms, etc. as well as transportation, meals and medical help when needed. The program recognizes that it’s not enough to provide education, but also to meet the orphan’s needs in the areas of social and spiritual development. To accomplish this, the program also includes the needs of the guardian/family. This support is provided through workshops and skills training. Coralis’s experience as an administrator and manager has been widely used in her current ministry

Coralis’s second ministry is with the Mivumoni Epilepsy Clinic where she serves as Administrator. Epilepsy had often been considered a condition caused by curse, witchcraft, punishment for past sins of parents, etc.  It was never treated and people, including children, with epilepsy were kept hidden by their families.   The parish priest of Mivumoni identified the need to provide an epilepsy service.  As its administrator, Coralis started the Epilepsy Clinic in January 2002 in Mivumoni beginning with15 clients.  Currently the clinic has 145 clients.

Through the epilepsy clinic, Coralis helps provide annual epilepsy awareness to patients, the community, and schools through the Annual Epilepsy Day, and patients are provided a free epilepsy-medical checkup, medicine at subsidize-costs, and a follow-up for those who have been unable to attend the clinic for 3-5 consecutive months.

Unbelievably, Coralis also finds time to participate in a third ministry!  As a Resource Committee member for the Secondary School for the Deaf, Coralis provides ongoing outreach and helps to raise funds to complete the construction of a secondary/vocational school for the deaf. Twenty-two years ago, the Parish Priest of Mivumoni supported the first primary school for the deaf in the Coast. Now, Coralis is helping to make the fourth school of its kind a reality. As of mid-2009, the school was in its final phase of construction. After creating community awareness through special events, the first 23 students were received for 2009 school year even before the first 2 classrooms were completed in the end of 2009!