TANZANIA: Catholic Youths in Africa Pledge to be More Vibrant in Promoting Care for Creation
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
Young people from across the continent under their umbrella body Catholic Youth Network for Environmental Sustainability in Africa (CYNESA) have promised after their two-day assembly in Tanzania, to be more committed in caring for environment by actively implementing various techniques.
In their statement adopted on Wednesday, May 31, at St. Carolus Tengeru, Arusha, Tanzania, members of CYNESA who stress the urgent need to act in communities, places of faith and institutions towards care of our common home, have promised to get more involved in “constant, constructive, and progressive dialogue with other young people living on this planet to create awareness and sensitize them to act in their communities for the care of our common home.”
Following the launch of Laudato Si’ guidelines for the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) that took place during the 20th Plenary Assembly in 2022, with the aim of addressing environmental challenges and responding to climate change in the Eastern Africa region, young people have committed to promote and implement these guidelines in their communities and institutions in various parts of Africa where they come from.
Besides, they have committed to “engage actively and take part in policy making and policy making forums while working towards becoming policy makers ourselves by vying for local, subnational and regional leadership positions.”
Members of CYNESA in their assembly in Tanzania, were marking the eighth anniversary of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ which was published in 2015 on care of our common home and which exposed the inhuman acts towards the environment that has led to degradation, global warming and climate change among other effects.
According to the youths, the initiative to form the environmental network across the continent in 2012, was inspired by St. John Paul II’s 1990 message for World Day of Peace, where the then head of the Catholic Church called for the need to upscale ecological awareness and to find fitting expression in concrete programs and initiatives.
In their Wednesday statement, the young men and women who acknowledge the supremacy of the Almighty God as Creator of heaven and our common home, mother earth, have further promised to “initiate and engage actively in sustainable concretes in communities to safeguard God’s creation,” and to “contribute intentionally to engaging in intergeneration dialogue and the presentation of indigenous knowledge.”
Knowing that Pope Francis’ Encyclical advocates for being responsive to the cry of the poor who seem to suffer more due to inhuman acts towards the environment, CYNESA members who are inspired by faith and are alive to the cry of the earth and of the poor, commit to “ensure human rights-based approaches and gender equity and equality in all our engagements on the care for our common home.”
The continental youth network comprises of Catholic participants from diverse communities, cultures of Africa and beyond, and multiple languages and nationalities representing university chaplaincies and parish groups, with the aim of promoting responsible stewardship of the environment.
The youths in their statement have further highlighted their commitment to engage policy makers and promote collective action to mitigate climate Change.
“We declare that we shall engage our policymakers at the local, subnational and national governments, regional and international forums to contribute to and shape the policies that govern the environment and environmental conversation in our countries and regions consistently and without giving up,” the youths say in their statement.
They added, “We shall engage in individual and collective action to help our communities to mitigate, and avert the detrimental effects of climate change in our communities,” and also “engage in individual and collective action to halt biodiversity loss and contribute to its restoration in line with post-2020 global biodiversity framework.”
They further declared using their potential of youthfulness to say no to plastics and plastic pollution and also “live up to the fullest of our talents, gifts and potentials to be protectors of God’s handiwork.”
