KENYA: ACWECA President Commends Members for their Commitments to Associations’ Course
Sr. Cecilia Njeri, LSOSF, President of ACWECA
President of the Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa (ACWECA) Sr. Cecilia Njeri, LSOSF, has expressed immense gratitude to Religious Congregations from the ten Member countries for their strong commitment towards the course of the Association.
Evident through the membership financial contributions and full participation in the laid down programs of ACWECA, Sr. Njeri who is also the Superior General of the Congregation of Little Sisters of St. Joseph testifies that their programs often come to realization because of the Sisters’ commitments.
“We have had challenges for example with the funding for our programs. We only have a handful of funding partners who have been very supportive. This means that there are times when we would write project proposals and they don’t go through. However, programs must go on as we have to still fulfil our mandate,” Sr. Cecilia explained.
“In those cases, one thing that has helped us are the contributions from the Sisters through the membership fee. Sometimes when our project proposals fail to generate any income, the membership fee has kept us a floating and the programs running,” she added.
Does that mean that all the misters in the region have been committed to their membership mandates? How has ACWECA achieved this? The answer, according to Sr. Cecilia is affirmative in that majority of the Sisters are committed to their membership obligations.
“What they usually do is that they give their money to the National Associations which in turn remits the collections to ACWECA Secretariat.”
According to Sr. Adelina Muguna, NSA, the Chairperson of the Association of Sisterhood of Kenya AOSK, the membership for ACWECA is of the National Associations. Every National Association is therefore expected to pay an annual registration fee.
“It is upon the National Association to know how to get the money from the Religious Congregations within their jurisdiction. If, for instance, Kenya is mandated to give US $ 5,000 as annual registration fee for AOSK, it is our obligation to remit that full amount to ACWECA within a specified period of time. We don’t have to mind whether the individual member Congregations have paid or not: rather, we at AOSK must find a way to pay because we believe in the activities of ACWECA which are meant for our own good,” Sr. Adelina explained.
Because the National Associations are never equal in terms of the number of member Religious Congregations as well as the economic, social and political situations of the member countries, the annual membership contributions do vary.
“Since we are not of equal strength, different Conferences are given an amount reasonable according to their means,” Sr. Adelina explained.
ACWECA, whose member countries currently stands at ten (namely Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe as an Associate Member) is however not without challenges.
According to the ACWECA President Sr. Cecilia, the Association is not so much visible yet as they would wish it to be.
“Many Religious Sisters from our member countries still do not know about ACWECA. However, we are making efforts to encourage National Associations to make ACWECA known, to talk about ACWECA to the young and the old nuns so that all of us know that this body is for us all; it is not only for the Secretariat but rather for us all and for our own benefits.”
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By Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Online News
