Religious faith remains a central part of a large portion of peoples’
lives, however later in life, opportunities to act out this faith
become limited due to mobility or health issues. The Knights of Saint Columbanus aim to change this through the launch of their new charitable project, titled Rekindling Faith.
The project has been set up by the Newry Chapter of the Knight’s, known as CK10, and it hopes to provide Kindle Fire tablet devices to elderly or housebound people who are no longer able to get to a church service.
The way this project works is that a member of an elderly or housebound person’s family will contact the priests of Newry parish in the Diocese of Dromore, expressing interest in acquiring the Kindle and from here they will be selected for a visit.
A few members of the Knights, along with at least one member of the Associate Knight’s, (the youth division of the Knights who originally spawned the idea for the project) will visit the person and their family to show them how to operate the Kindle, which uses the in-built internet browser to access different church websites around the Newry area and make use of their live streaming service to pick up live video feeds from the Masses.
Due to improvements made to the tablets, anyone can access live Mass by simply tapping a few buttons. This latest development comes after many people availed of the parish radio service however this new service will enable them to actively view the Mass or service as it happens.
This project has been launched after more
than a year of working out the finer details and organizing fundraisers
to raise the money necessary to buy and operate the Kindles.