A few historical facts…

It is possible you may already have had a look on the website www.depaulinternational.org which has links to the Depaul websites country by country to find out more about the Depaul Group’s history, its vision, mission and values. Depaul International and all the charities in the Depaul Group find their roots in the work of St Vincent de Paul, born in France in 1581. This means that we are part of a 400-year tradition of helping those in society who are the most disadvantaged and needy, in the words of St Vincent de Paul from whom we take our name, “the poorest of the poor”.

There are other groups around the world which also trace their roots from the social work of St Vincent de Paul, which is why you may hear the charities in the Depaul Group, as well as these other allied ones, described as belonging to the “Vincentian Family” and hear our values called “Vincentian”.

This short booklet is intended to give you more information about our history, and more background knowledge about the values, the ethos, and the inspiration behind it which have been so important to the development of the Depaul Group. It’s central to how Depaul Trust, as it was then called, came into being in London in 1989, and why it developed its services out to the regions and became a national charity. It’s why, early in the new millennium, we crossed the Irish Sea to Dublin to start Depaul in Ireland, and more recently why Depaul International was set up as the parent charity of the Group, with a remit to develop services further afield for

Welcome to DepaulContents1 Welcome to Depaul

2 What are Depaul’s values all about?

4 Vincent de Paul

6 Louise de Marillac

8 Timeline

10 Sr. Rosalie Rendu

12 Frédéric Ozanam

14 Historical roots in Paris

15 Map

16 Keeping the ethos and values as new staff and volunteers join - Depaul’s Philosophy of Care

1

vulnerable homeless people in Central and Eastern Europe and most recently in the USA. From small beginnings in England in the late 1980’s, Depaul is now a group of international charities working together in several countries around the world.

At the forefront of Depaul’s progress is a values base shared with other charities. These core values have been developed from the work of St Vincent de Paul which unites the Depaul Group.

The Depaul Group:Celebrates the potential of people•Puts words into action•Aims to take a wider role in civil society•Believes in rights and responsibilities•

With thanks toAlison VeaseySr. Maureen Tinkler DCSr. Maria Parcher DCFr. Hugh O’Donnell CM

AcknowledgementWe have sourced some historical information and Vincentian images from:www.famvin.orgwww.filles-de-la-charite.org

The Depaul Trust, now known as Depaul UK, came into being in London in 1989 on the initiative of the late Cardinal Basil Hume, who became its founding Patron. He saw growing numbers of homeless young people sleeping rough in the streets outside Westminster Cathedral, and he requested help from three Catholic church organisations to set up a new charity which would cater specifically for this client group. These organisations were: The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP), The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul and The Passage Day Centre in London (a day centre for homeless people in Victoria).

These three founding partners continue to be represented at a governance level in what has become an independent group of Depaul charities now under the umbrella of the parent charity Depaul International, set up in 2004.

We still work closely with the Catholic church and other faith communities, but perhaps one of the most important points to recognise is that all the Depaul charities within the Group work with vulnerable and disadvantaged people of any faith or none at all. Equally our staff and volunteers are drawn from all walks of life and may be of any faith or none at all. What matters most is what we do and how we do it, and that we strive to give the best possible quality of service to those who need our help.

We realised very early on that to achieve our goal we needed to have a vision, mission and a set of values that clearly define what Depaul is about, whereverwe may be working. We aim to be inclusive, never exclusive, and we hope that our vision, mission and values run clearly as a common thread throughout our organisations.

Each charity within the Depaul Group may have a slightly different client focus in terms of age or need, but will always work with those on the margins of society, the vulnerable and the disadvantaged, and it is our strong values base that gives us a consistent and energising way of helping them. This is another reason that Depaul International was established as the parent charity of the Group, to coordinate a cohesive influence across it, ensure consistency, and nurture our shared values.

Our vision is that every person has a place to call home and a stakein their community.

Our mission is to offer homeless and disadvantaged people the opportunity to fulfil their potential and move towards an independent and positive future.

Our key values underpin all of the work we do. These are summarised on the following page - for the full version please see the Depaul Group Agreement document or a recent version of the Corporate Plan.

What are Depaul’s values all about?

We believe in partnership•

We aim to be open and accountable to •our staff, to our volunteers, to our service users, and to our funders

We believe in justice for all - through •influencing structural change in society and supporting individuals

We are custodians of valuable resources •and recognise our responsibility to use them as effectively as possible

We strive to be a best practice organisation•

We have a global perspective and potential•

What matters is what we do•

We are committed to innovation and to •finding new ways to tackle the problems that we encounter

We do what we say we will do•

We take risks in working with marginalised •groups and people with challenging behaviour

32

We believe in the potential of people•

We believe in developing the individual •and the organisation - promoting the development of our service users to achieve their potential, and investing in our staff and volunteers to help them develop and make the best use of their skills to deliver high quality services

We will treat all of the people who use our •services with respect

We have a strong culture of volunteering•

The Depaul Group celebrates the potential of people

The Depaul Group puts its words into action

The Depaul Group aims to take a wider role in civil society

The Depaul Group believes in rights and responsibilities

We believe that people have fundamental rights as human beings and within the law, which must be safeguarded and upheld.

We believe that with rights go responsibilities and a duty to consider others.

Rights:

•Tobetreatedfairlyandwithimpartiality

•Tohaveone’sideasandopinionslistenedto and respected

•To work in a positive and supportive environment

•To have one’s contribution recognised

•Tobekeptinformed

Responsibilities:

• To treat others fairly and with impartiality

•Tolistentoandrespecttheideas and opinions of others

•Toworkwithothersinapositive and supportive way

•Torecognisethecontributionofothers

•Tofacilitateandtakeresponsibility for effective communication

The Congregation of the Mission

Vincent de Paul was born into a peasant family on 24 April 1581, in the village of Pouy near Dax in south west France. He studied theology at the University of Toulouse, was ordained a priest at 19, and completed his theological studies four years later. However, his ambition to be a parish priest with substantial means was thwarted at every turn and after 8 years of restless searching and travel he arrived in Paris in 1608.

Here, he came under the influence of a wise spiritual guide, Pierre de Berulle, who helped him fulfil his dream. During this time too he formed many alliances with influential aristocratic and government connections which were later to stand him in good stead. At last in 1612 he became parish priest in Clichy on the outskirts of Paris. Despite being very happy here it was not enough. In 1613 he became tutor to the children of the wealthy de Gondi household, and in 1617, whilst on a visit to one of the family’s estates, he was so moved by the spiritual poverty he witnessed that he called on the help of fellow priests to help him meet their needs. Despite this new work his restlessness continued and he moved to a parish in eastern France. Here he encountered the appalling conditions of poor sick people and set up a network of local support to meet their immediate needs in their own homes. Working with detailed guidelines, clear values and funded by local benefactors these groups were known as Confraternities of Charity, and the embryonic systems became the foundation of all his later charity work. He returned to Paris, the de Gondi family, and the development of these initiatives. Philippe de Gondi was General

Vincent de Paul

During his lifetime Vincent carried on an enormous correspondence, writing more than 30,000 letters, of which only about 10% have been preserved. These offered advice and support, in a form of ‘supervision by letter’ in many cases, as he issued instructions or gave guidance to the by now far flung parts of the globe in which services had been set up for the poor, run by priests of his Congregation of the Mission. By the time of his death the Congregation had spread to Poland, Italy, Algeria, Madagascar, Ireland, Scotland, the Hebrides, and the Orkneys.

Vincent was a man of action, and throughout his life he worked tirelessly to put in place practical measures to help the poorest of the poor in the simplest and most straightforward way. When he died on 27 September 1660 he was much mourned, and was canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic Church in 1737. Today there are many groups which claim him as their founder, patron or inspirational figure – hence the terms ‘Vincentian’ and belonging to the ‘Vincentian Family’.

4 5

of the French Galleys, and in 1619 Vincent became chaplain to the galley slaves adding that to his mushrooming charitable work.

By 1625 the number of young men, some of them priests, who had joined him working in the countryside formed a religious group called the Congregation of the Mission, often known today as ‘The Vincentian Fathers’. They worked not only with the poor people of the countryside near Paris, but also in central Paris where they set up further Confraternities of Charity, organising what today we’d call soup kitchens, feeding hundreds of the poorest people every day. He started several hospitals, including one in Marseille for convicts sentenced to the galleys. Alongside all this, through his status and influence with the ruling classes in France, several times he was asked to act as a mediator in the wars of religion that were tearing France apart at that time.

Through his winning ways and excellent collaborative skills, he formed several associations of wealthy lay people, notably the Ladies of Charity (now the AIC – Association Internationale des Charites, which is still flourishing today), originally in Paris, then throughout France, and now worldwide. They had been the backbone of the Confraternities of Charity and were key funders of his developing works. In 1629 he asked a young and wealthy widow, Louise de Marillac, to assist in monitoring the quality of care provided by the Confraternities, and with her help in 1633 they recruited and educated a group of poorer women from the countryside around Paris, teaching them how to work amongst the poor as full time committed carers. This religious group has become known today as the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.

6

The Daughters of Charity

Many of the people Depaul works with today come from dysfunctional families, and in some ways you could describe Louise de Marillac as coming from one too, at least in the context of 17th century France. Her father Louis was from the French aristocracy. His first wife died, and Louise was born out of wedlock in Paris in 1591. She never knew who her mother was, but was acknowledged and raised by her father.

When she was three her father re-married, but his new wife did not want Louise to live with them. Louise was sent as a boarder to a Dominican convent where her aunt was living. These Sisters gave her a great education, she studied the Arts, Latin, Greek, the Classics, Mathematics, Theology, and Painting. The Sisters also fostered her relationship with God and gradually the desire to become a nun began to take root in her. Sadly her father died when she was thirteen and without his support she was sent to live in a boarding house where she then had the opportunity to learn more hands-on domestic skills, as well as acquiring knowledge of herbal medicine. These two educational experiences prepared her well for the future.

Advised against becoming a nun, marriage to Antoine le Gras, secretary to the Queen of France, was arranged. They grew to love each other and had a son, Michel, who was everything to them.

Suffering was never far from her though, and during the civil unrest her two uncles who

Louise de Marillacheld high rank within the French Government were imprisoned. One was publicly executed and the other died in prison. Her marital happiness too was short-lived, due to her husband’s overwork and poor health, and death finally claimed him in 1625. Overcome by spiritual turmoil throughout this period, she was prompted to seek the help of Vincent de Paul.

As a young married woman, she mixed with the royalty and aristocracy of France, but was equally comfortable with the poor, no matter how desperate their plight. She set up a Confraternity of Charity in Paris (a volunteer lay organisation founded by Vincent de Paul in 1617) which was dedicated to assisting the poor, and where she exercised an important leadership role. She and Vincent de Paul gradually forged a respect for each other and in 1629 he invited her to assist him with the Confraternities of Charity which he and his priests had established in many parishesall over France since setting up the Congregation of the Mission four years previously. This task was therapeutic for her, and she conducted site visits to assure the quality of the services being offered, and reviewed financial accounts for stewardship reports amongst many other tasks.

Nearly 400 years later Depaul International and its subsidiaries carry out similar quality checks to ensure our service users are dealt with consistently and receive the best quality service we can provide.

7

Through her work, Louise gained a deep knowledge of the needs of the poor, whilst she developed management skills and identified effective service structures. In 1633, in collaboration with Vincent de Paul, she began training a group of poor, uneducated young women in her own home to provide full time service for the needs of the poor. They came from the countryside around Paris, and came together as a community both to address the needs of the poorest people living in the surrounding countryside, and to gain support from their life together. From this humble beginning emerged the Community of the Daughters of Charity.

Louise continued to provide leadership and management to the evolving network of services inspired by both Vincent and herself which became her life’s work over the next 25 years. She died in Paris on 15 March 1660 just a few months before Vincent de Paul, and was proclaimed a Saint of the Catholic Church in 1934. Her spirit lives on today in almost 19,000 Daughters of Charity who serve throughout the world and in the charities that she inspires.

8 9

Timeline

1591 1625 16341600 1700 1800 1900 20001500

1737

1833

1813

1989

1934

2004 2007 2012

2002 2006 2008

Louise de Marillac 1591 to 1660

1617

Creation of the Confraternities

of Charity

Creation of the Congregation of the Mission

Creation of the Ladies Charity

1633

Creation of the Daughters of Charity

Vincent de PaulSaint in the

Catholic Church

Frédéric Ozanam 1813 to 1853

Creation of the Society of

St Vincent de Paul

Louise de MarillacSaint in the

Catholic Church

Depaul Trust (now Depaul UK) set up

Depaul Trust Ireland (now Depaul Ireland)

set up

Depaul Foundation (now Depaul International)

set up

Depaul Slovensko (Slovakia) set up

Depaul Kharkiv (Ukraine) set up

Depaul USA set up

Depaul France in development

Vincent de Paul 1581 to 1660

1581 1786

Sister Rosalie Rendu 1786 to 1856

Sr. Rosalie RenduThe story moves forward over 100 years from Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac’s time, to introduce Jeanne Marie Rendu, better known as Sister Rosalie Rendu who was born on 9 September 1786 in the French Swiss border town of Confort, in the Jura Mountains. She became a kind of Mother Teresa figure in the Paris of her day, for a time mentoring the young university student Frédéric Ozanam just after he founded the Conference of Charity later known as the Society of St Vincent de Paul. She was the eldest of four girls. Their parents were simple-living mountain people. They owned a small property and enjoyed the respect of their neighbours. She was three years old when the French Revolution broke out. From 1790 it was compulsory for the clergy to take an oath of support for the Civil Constitution. Many priests refused to take this oath. They were chased from their parishes, some were put to death and others had to hide to escape their pursuers. Her family home became a refuge for many of these priests. This exceptional environment in which she lived forged her character and her faith.

The last five years of the 18th century in France saw the Revolution pass, people calmed down little by little and life returned to normal. Rosalie was sent to boarding school with the Ursuline Sisters in Gex. During her walks in town, she discovered the hospital where the Daughters of Charity cared for the sick. She knew straight away that she had to go and join them. On 25 May 1802, at the age of 16, she arrived at the Motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity in Paris where she joined 50 other young women to begin her religious training as a Sister, and she was sent to a house of the Daughters of Charity in the Mouffetard District of Paris, where she lived and served the poorest people in the neighbourhood there for the next 54 years. This was a rapidly expanding district of Paris where poverty in all its forms flourished. Disease, unhealthy slums, and destitution were the daily lot of the people trying to survive there. Attempting to reduce the suffering, she opened a free clinic, a pharmacy, a school, an orphanage, a child care centre, a youth club for young workers and a home for elderly people who had nothing. Soon a whole network of charitable services were established to counter poverty.

Her reputation quickly grew across the capital and beyond to the towns in the region. Like Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac, she too knew how to network with efficient and dedicated collaborators, and donations flowed in quickly as the rich were unable to resist her persuasive charm! She became the centre of a charitable movement that characterized Paris and France in the first half of the 19th century. She was asked to help a group of university students, led by Frédéric Ozanam, who were studying law and who wanted to make a difference in the lives of poverty stricken people – but didn’t quite know how to go about it.

10

She supported Frédéric Ozanam and the fledgling Society of St Vincent de Paul, another Vincentian lay organisation which still flourishes today. During the last years of her life, she became progressively blind, and suffered from fevers and increasing infirmity. On her death at the age of nearly 70 on 7 February 1856 she was buried in the cemetery at Montparnasse, mourned by crowds of rich and poor alike.

Her simple tombstone is engraved with the words “To Sister Rosalie, from her grateful friends, the rich and the poor” and to this day flowers are left on her grave from ‘her grateful friends’.

11

The Society of St Vincent de Paul

For Frédéric Ozanam, a twenty-year-old student at the Sorbonne, Paris life was tough when you attempted to “raise your head above the parapet” and swim against the prevailing tide of secularity and materialism in 19th century France. But he and five other good friends did just that, as they were challenged (by other students who tended towards supporting secularity) about their response to the poverty they saw all around them in Paris. What were they doing about it?

How to start though? Where to begin? They all came from educated, middle-class backgrounds. Frédéric was actually born in Milan, Italy on 23 April 1813 where his father was a captain in Napoleon’s army. When he was three the family moved back to Lyon in France, where his father became a doctor. He was a brilliant student and had a flair for history, literature, philosophy, theology, oratory and debate and finally made his career as a lawyer. With the kind of privileged backgrounds they all had though it was hard to get access into the homes of poor families in order to help. One day he was chatting this over with a priest friend, who with a glint in his eye, said: “I know just the person to help!”The group was introduced to Sister Rosalie Rendu, who began to act as their mentor, and introduced them to the work of Vincent de Paul amongst the poor 200 years previously. She explained his vision and values, and showed them how to befriend vulnerable people, treat them with love and respect and help them improve their quality of life.

Other young people joined these six young men in their service of vulnerable people begun in 1833 and known as the ‘Conference of Charity’ dedicated to practical lay work among the poor. After two years its name was changed to the "Society of St. Vincent de Paul" and its formal rules were published. It aimed at serving the needy of every faith and nation, and the Society in one nation was expected to come to the aid of the needy of other nations in times of crisis. (This was how the Paris branch assisted Dublin during the Irish famine 1845-1849, and the Dublin branch reached out to the Parisian victims of the French revolution of 1848.) The remarkable thing about this worldwide organization, which now has over 46,000 local conferences with nearly a million members, is that, although blessed by the Church, it is strictly a lay undertaking, just as the Depaul Group of charities is a lay organisation in the 21st century.

Frédéric Ozanam

Like many young men Frédéric grew into a busy middle-aged man carrying many responsibilities in all areas of his life - personal, family, professional and civic - yet he found time to continue to be a champion of the poor and vulnerable. For a time he became Professor and Chair of Commercial Law in the faculty of Lyon university and later full time Professor of Literature at the Sorbonne. However, he didn’t have robust health and in his thirties had to abandon teaching, something which he had seen as his vocation. When his ill health forced his retirement he put all his remaining energies into historical research about Christianity, and into furthering the work of the Society of St Vincent de Paul which continued to provide much needed help to the poor of France. On 8 September 1853, after a long illness, he died at the age of 40 in Marseille.

12 13

Historical roots in Paris

14 15

Vincent de Paul’s life history, and that of Louise de Marillac, Sr Rosalie Rendu and Frédéric Ozanam, have been outlined on the previous pages. You may be interested in some of the places in Paris where their work with the poor was carried out with such great effect, some of the links and people involved along the way, and where there are places today, in modern-day 21st century Paris, that are still associated with our Vincentian roots.

6 Rue de Londres

Modern day offices of SVP, which house many fascinating Vincentian records and the bust of Frédéric Ozanam.

Rue de Faubourg Saint-Denis

The original site of St Lazare where the Congregation of the Mission was first based until 1789. All that exists of the original building is a portion of a buttressed wall. On the wall of another house in the area there is a spectacular modern sculpture / picture in bronze, three storeys high, of Vincent de Paul.

140 Rue du Bac

This is where the Mother house of the Daughters of Charity is located, along with the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and Louise de Marillac’s tomb.

95 Rue de Sévres

This is the location of Vincent de Paul’s tomb, and the place where the Congregation of the Mission moved to at the beginning of the 19th century, and continues to be based in the 21st century.

16

Keeping the ethos and values as new staff and volunteers joinIf you’re reading this as a new member of staff or volunteer, then we hope this booklet has made clear why Depaul International takes its responsibility to maintain the values base of the Depaul Group so seriously. When new staff or volunteers join, subsidiaries offer an induction programme to equip people with a good understanding of the organisation as a whole, its history and values, as well as their role, and their place within the team.

Each year Depaul International also runs in-house training courses for longer-serving staff across the Depaul Group on Vincentian Values in Leadership. These are designed to explore further their reasons for choosing to work in a charity, and why they work with their particular client group. It explores the potential for re-energising not only themselves but the team they work with, seeking new inspiration and new ways to be innovative in their projects so that our clients and residents receive the best possible quality of service. Since Depaul International began this programme in 2005/6 well over 100 staff and trustees have taken part.

WelcomeWe are glad you are here

In this place you can take steps towards a better future You will lead the way

We will ask, listen and helpWe will work and walk with you

Welcome

On the next page is our Philosophy of Care Statement which shows how we put our values into action in our work with homeless and disadvantaged people.

Depaul’s Philosophy of Care

Depaul International291-299 Borough High StreetLondon SE1 1JGUnited Kingdom

Tel +44 (0)207 939 1220Fax +44 (0)207 939 1221Email info@depaulinternational.orgwww.depaulinternational.org

Depaul International is a Registered Charity No. 1107385 Company No. 5245818Registered in England and Wales at the above address

Design by Very www.verystudio.co.uk