SURVIVE-MIVA

Who we are

SURVIVE-MIVA is a UK-based lay Catholic Association and Registered Charity, no. 268745. Founded in Liverpool in 1974, we make grants to fund essential forms of transport for the Church’s vital health outreach work and pastoral ministry in the developing world.

As an Association, we have approximately sixty members, or volunteer Speakers, who make short lectern appeals to fundraise in Catholic parishes across England, Scotland and Wales. The main sources of income for the charity are voluntary giving in response to these appeals, along with donations from readers of our twice-yearly magazine, ‘Awareness’. 

Since our founding, we have funded bicycles for parish catechists in order for them to make sick calls, for example, along with motorbikes for parish priests to visit isolated rural communities to say Mass and celebrate the Sacraments, as well as four-wheel vehicles for trained personnel, usually Sisters from indigenous Religious Orders, to make rough-terrain journeys taking vital mobile healthcare, child immunisations, and pre and post maternity care to those off the beaten track. Priority is given to indigenous communities.

Our culture and values

Our Values

• We value the work and views of our sisters and brothers in the developing world, hearing in them the voice of the marginalised.
• Rejecting dependency, we seek to strengthen grassroots initiatives which focus on locally identified needs and priorities so that access to healthcare and pastoral support can be brought about by sustainable means.
• We will be honest stewards of all resources entrusted to us through the solidarity and conviction of others.
• We will be openly accountable to others, and systematic in the evaluation of our impact and effectiveness.
• We will act with the responsibility our relations with beneficiaries demands so that, in spite of the obstacles, the opportunity for them to bring about change will be fostered by the mobility our Association provides.