ERITREA: 21st Anniversary of Women’s Development Establishment of Eparchy of Keren
“Wisdom builds her house, but folly tears hers down with her own hands” (Prv 14:1)
ECBC Secretariat Communication Desk
The Catholic Eparchial Secretariat Keren (CESK) celebrated Eparchial Women’s Day under the theme “Wisdom builds her house, but folly tears hers down with her own hands” for the 21st year since its establishment, with several activities including educational and moral presentations, traditional songs and dances, poems and short educational stage dramas.
The celebration took place on May 20, 2024 in the meeting hall of the eparchy in Keren, and was organized and facilitated by the Department of Women in Development (WID) of the Eparchy.
The program started with the opening prayer and blessings by Bishop Kidane Yebiyo of the Eparchy of Keren, a welcome note by Fr. Fesseha Ankere to all the participants who were mostly the women who represent their villages and groups, the invited guests, parish priests and governmental officials.
Fr. Fesseha who is the bursar and Pastoral Department Head of the Eparchy expressed gratitude to his Rt. Rev. Kidane and his Vice Abba Habtai, the parish priests who accompanied their respective parish representatives and all the invited guests for their participation.
Following the opening prayers and welcome notes, coordinator of the meeting Mr. Araya Tesfaghaber briefly explained the aim of the meeting, highlighting the main events for the day, and finally invited Sr. Saba Eman, the WID Coordinator of CESK to present the overall activities of the program.
“The goal of this program is to make women free from economic and social barriers and empowering them to be self-helping by participating in the national and family development programs bearing in mind to develop the mothers ethically and morally, and creating opportunities for them to involve in some profit-making activities and help their families as its main object” she said.
She further explained that CESK have organized and facilitated several capacity building trainings and workshops in order to help the women increase their awareness and self-confidence.
Sr. Saba highlighted their achievements done through such campaigns and managed reaching 2,500 beneficiary mothers organized in 62 groups, each group composed of 18 – 36 mothers, 21 teachers in 48 villages. Explaining their future plans Sr. Saba said that the Eparchy managed to reach only five Sub-zones and they do have the plan to reach all the nine sub-zone of Anseba Region.
The report further highlighted the types of assistances given to the mothers, individually or in groups, are distribution of chickens, goats, donkeys, palm tree leaves, weaving handlooms, sewing machines, energy saving stoves, vegetable seeds and equipment for back yard gardening, household utensils like cooking materials and water container barrels. All these are in kind and there is also cash given to individuals or for groups as loan from the Eparchy as revolving fund.
In her final remarks Sr. Saba said that the beneficiary mothers also participated in trainings like preparation of traditional food dishes, installation of energy saving stoves and preparation of balanced diet at home with what is available, etc.
Following the completion of the annual report of the coordinator of Women in Development Department of the Eparchy, a poem in Blin language was read by one of the participants and immediately a traditional song & dance by women from Dengurjiba village (all were Muslim) entertained the audience.
The next program was a brief presentation by Fr. Quazien Hamde, parish priest of St. Mary of Perpetual Help Kidane Mehret Hagaz, regarding that day’s theme from the book of proverbs that say: “Wisdom builds her house, but folly tears hers down with her own hands” (Prv 14:1)
“We are here to witness today the value and respect our Catholic Church gives to a mother and this is a proof for itself that a mother is the teacher of all societies” said Fr. Quazien tracing back to the book of Genesis that God Himself said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him” (Gn.2:18).
“What kind of a mother do we call wise?” he asked the audience and then he summarized the qualities of a wise woman. Fr. Quazien highlighted the main points that a wise mother should have and said “Wise mother is the one who knows and accepts the resources available and is satisfied with it, the one who listens by heart, who responds from her heart, who shares her resources, who learns from experience, who is self-confident, who has the spirit of dialogue, encouraging and correcting spirit.”
Finally, he reminded the mothers that the beauty of a mother is not in wearing new branded clothes. “Wearing unbranded and cheap clothes doesn’t mean you are poor” he mentioned this quote and concluded his presentation.
At the end of the meeting, comments, suggestions and congratulations messages were delivered. On behalf of Eritrean Catholic Secretariat (ErCS) Sr. Luchia Teclemichael, coordinator of ErCS Women in Development (WID) delivered greetings and best wished of ErCS Secretary General Sr. Tseghereda Yohannes (PhD) and apologized for not managing to participate in this special day dedicated for women. So also representative of the Religious Affairs of Anseba Zone conveyed his message of gratitude and satisfaction with the works of the Eparchy doing to make mothers self-helping and improving their living standards.
