AMECEA: Women Workshop Begins
AMECEA Justice and Peace workshop on Women for Accountability began yesterday at St Therese Training Center in Karen Nairobi.
Participants who represented all AMECEA countries except for Eritrea expressed enthusiasm about the workshop. “I have attended several workshops for women and most of them as usually about gender empowerment, self reliance, economic empowerment; none has ever been about accountability therefore this is a great opportunity,” says Rita Martin Lopidia Abraham from South Sudan.
Other participants equally had high expectations from the workshop citing the fact that women form the majority of African population and therefore have a great influence on political, social and economical development of their respective countries; as such they play a bigger role in the society where they have to be accountable first to God, family and the rest of the society. The workshop therefore has come at an appropriate time when AMECEA Countries and Africa at large is experiencing difficulties and the woman is called upon to take her role in the society.
The workshop was officially opened by Rev. Fr. Ferdinand Lugonzo, Secretary General of AMECEA who on behalf of the AMECEA Chairman, Most Rev. Tarcisius Gervazio Ziyaye, Archbishop of Blantyre, Malawi welcomed the participants and thank them for having responded positively to the invitation to come and chart out ways on how to equip women with monitoring skills and holding the leaders within the AMECEA Region and beyond accountable.
In his key note speech Fr. Ferdinand drew the attention of participants to what Blessed John Paul II expressed in his Post-Synodal Exhortation Christifideles Laici (The Lay Members of Christ’s Faithful People) on the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful in the World. In the document, the Pope cited two temptations which the laity has not always known how to avoid:
1. The temptation of being so strongly interested in the Church services and tasks that some fail to become actively engaged in their responsibilities in the professional, social, cultural and political world.
2. The temptation of legitimizing the unwarranted separation of faith from life, that is, a separation of the Gospel’s acceptance from the actual living of the Gospel in various situations in the world.
As a solution to these temptations, the Pope went further and stated that there is need for the lay faithful to hearken to the call of Christ the Lord to work in the vineyard, to take an active, conscientious and responsible part in the mission of the Church; thus he affirmed that in the times we are living in today, it is not possible for anyone to remain idle!
Fr Ferdinand re-echoed the words of the late Holy Father and emphasized that with the special place which the woman has been give in the order of creation and in the order of salvation (refer to the creation story and how the woman was created to make man’s life complete; the example of Mary and her role in the salvation of mankind), and looking at what nations are experiencing in terms of exploitation and misuse of women, no woman should remain idle! This means that today more than ever we need women to be actresses and not observers:
a) Actresses in the Family – this means that we need women who hold dear the aspects of transmission of life and education of children.
b) Actresses in the development of the society – example of the difference between educating a woman and educating a man.
c) Actresses in the Life and Mission of the Church – we need women who have faith (a believing woman), women who are evangelizing, and women who are in continuous dialogue with God. Remember, the voice of the Lord must clearly resound in the depths of each one of us who, through faith and the Sacraments of Christian initiation is made like Christ, is incorporated as a living member in the Church and has an active part in her mission of salvation.
According to Fr. Ferdinand it is indeed only when the woman is aware of these roles that she will:
i) Stand out to be counted as a woman for accountability
ii) Be able to say NO to being misused for political agenda that is not in conformity with the values that you stand for
iii) Be able to practice good stewardship with regard to projects that are meant to empower the people.
iv) Be able to become a true team player
v) Be able to see the need to go out there and empower others
He concluded by saying that “We at AMECEA are committed to the promotion and development of all the resources that Almighty God has blessed us with in this Region. We are committed to the service of the People of God in the Eastern Africa Region. But we are aware that the first and most important person is every single person of good will in this region.”
The workshop which is meant for TOTs (Training of Trainers) targets women who are already working with women groups and who have the ability to train others and form monitoring committees at their local situations.
SOURCE: AMECEA Communications office
