Scalabrini Village Limited began in 1969 when the Scalabrini Fathers and a group of Sydney businessmen formed a committee to erect a retirement village for aged Italian migrants.

The Scalabrini Fathers have a long history working as missionaries for the welfare of migrants in foreign countries.

The Scalabrinian Fathers

Part of their work, apart from the spiritual aspect, was to institute social welfare and cultural centres. As the migrant population began to age, the need to provide aged care became evident.

This resulted in what exists today as Scalabrini Village Limited.

The Scalabrian Missionaries

The Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles, also known as Scalabrinians, is an international community of religious brothers and priests, founded in Piacenza (Italy) in 1887 by blessed John Baptist Scalabrini.

The Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini

The Congregation has been called to announce the good news of Christ to migrants and refugees, especially those who require a specific pastoral care. Scalabrinians fulfill their mission by sharing the same life and the very experience of migration.

By their practice of religious vows and by their community living, they contribute with migrants to the growth of the Church which, in its earthly pilgrimage, associates itself particularly with the poorest and most abandoned classes of people.

With their apostolic activities, the Missionaries of St. Charles meet the challenge of healing migration's causes and evil effects. They help discover the plan God carries out in all migration movements, even when determined by injustices, so that the encounter of peoples and cultures, enriched by the gift of the Spirit on Pentecost, is transformed into communion.

Migrants’ peculiar traits remind Scalabrinian missionaries and the local churches of the fellowship of Pentecost, where the Spirit brings harmony among all differences and where love shows itself to be genuine by accepting "the other."

The Scalabrinian Congregation cares for migrants and refugees in a variety of ways socially, culturally and spiritually. Its missionaries are present in 24 nations of Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

They are in charge of shelter homes for refugees or migrants in transit or deported aliens, seamen’s centres, villages for elderly migrants, and centres for migration studies.

They publish newspaper and magazines for migrants and conduct radio and television programs for them.

They run formation houses for religious and lay people, or are members of migration committees of Bishops’ Conferences.
Many of them are engaged in preaching missions to migrant communities, teaching, or running multicultural parishes and ethnic missions.

Links
www.scalabrini.org/eng/english.htm