ZAMBIA: ZCCB Hold Virtual Workshop on Peace Building

Mwenya Mukuka

Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) president Most Rev. Ignatius Chama has observed that all efforts to bring about a peaceful Zambia cannot bear much fruit if people who want to take part in peace building do not have what it takes to be peace builders.

He said people cannot go into peace building without knowing their roles and place they would occupy in the process and the driving rationale.

Archbishop Chama said this when he opened a ZCCB Peacebuilding Webinar which attracted a wide range of participants from all the Catholic dioceses in Zambia on Monday 31^st May,2021.

Archbishop Chama also said the Catholic Church has all it takes to involve in peace building and should from time to time remind herself to evaluate her old positions so that its responses are relevant to the opportune time.

“We are a Church that has all it takes to involve itself in peace building. But we need from time to time to remind ourselves to brush and dust our old positions so that our responses to the needs of the Church being peace builder are relevant to the Kairos,” he said.

“I see this workshop as a moment of revisiting our role as a Church that is fully involved in peace building as well as brushing up strategies that will equip us in being peacemakers,” Archbishop Chama added.

Archbishop Chama further urged the workshop participants to be prepared as ‘labourers’ for peacemaking in Zambia, and that their efforts be supported by God so that they may become effective drivers and mediators of peace.

The workshop which will close on Thursday, 3^rd June,2021 is being held under the theme ‘Towards Peaceful Zambia-The Role of the Church’.

ZCCB held a similar workshop last November and drew which included bishops, pastoral coordinators, Caritas directors, and Communication secretaries from all the dioceses and archdioceses.

Zambia shall be going to the polls on August 12, 2021 and currently political campaigns have heightened.