Liverpool-based Catholic charity Survive-MIVA, who fund transport for the Church’s healthcare and pastoral work in the Global South, has opened its archives to the public for the first time. Records dating back to the charity’s founding in 1974 are now publicly available at the heritage centre run by the Mill Hill Missionaries in Formby.

 

The material chronicles the inner workings of the charity, giving insights into how a lay association organised itself, how it made decisions, and particularly, how attitudes to overseas aid have changed since the 1970s.

 

Additionally, because Survive-MIVA is a grant-giving charity, it also holds a complete set of 50 years’ worth of successful grant applications, containing detailed first-hand accounts from missionaries in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia describing their work, their lives, and the lives of the communities they serve.

 

There are few archival collections that cover this kind of material at all, and the inclusion of material from over 50 different countries makes the Survive-MIVA archive unique in its scope.

 

Here’s an example of an image from the collection - a mid 70s photo showing Liverpool University students who were involved in the charity in its early years. But there’s no record of who the young women are, and Survive-MIVA needs the help of the Catholic community, especially in Liverpool, to fill in some of the information gaps. So for instance, if you know who any of the people in this photo are, please contact comms@survive miva.org and let the charity know.

 

Anyone can make an appointment to consult the records; and anyone interested is welcome to contact Survive-MIVA first (comms@survive-miva.org) for help on how to find what they are looking for.

 

Survive-MIVA has engaged an archivist to begin cataloguing the material, and are seeking funding to enable further cataloguing work to give a deeper understanding of the stories that are hidden in the records, and to digitise the material so it can be accessed in other countries by the people whose lives are recorded in it.

 

You can see some photos from the Survive-MIVA archives already by following the link at www.survive-miva.org/archives, where you can comment on any of the photos to say who is in them, and when and where they were taken. More photos will be added to the site as they are digitised.

 

Interested readers can donate to Survive-MIVA’s core work, of supporting the Church’s pastoral and healthcare outreach in the Global South, via its website, www.survive-miva.org.