AMECEA: “AMECEA Secretariat Must Reflect Governing Body Decisions”, Secretary General at Planning Meeting
AMECEA Secretariat Staff
Sr. Henriette Anne, FSSA
During the annual planning meeting for the Secretariat of the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) in Nairobi, Kenya, the Secretary-General, Fr. Anthony Makunde, emphasized the importance of each of its four departments aligning their Secretariat plans with the decisions and directives of AMECEA’s governing bodies.
“We are planning together to address the issues raised by our decision-making bodies, particularly the association owners.
Addressing the staff during the meeting at Elysian Resort in Nairobi Thursday, January 16th, Fr. Anthony acknowledged the blessings they have received and reminded the team that there is still much to be done through God’s grace.
“Our group is small but we are able to achieve much, we thank God for what we have done so far as I said we are not comfortable that we have reached the peak we are still working and with God’s grace we will do more”.
Fr. Makunde, the native of Tanzania highlighted that it is necessary to have concrete and substantial plans to ensure that each department is not operating in isolation but working together to maximize the use of available resources.
“We cannot just move without having something concrete, substantial on the table, we cannot just leave each and every department to work on its own as if it is an isolated department, we are here to plan together, so that we may be informed of the different areas and activities that our various departments have put on the table for the year 2025”, he continued, “planning helps us to make maximum use of the little resources we have”.
He reminded the entire Secretariat team that the next plenary assembly is soon approaching urging all the departments to include preparatory activities for the next plenary in 2026. “This is 2025, we are coming close to the end of this term, 2026 is a plenary assembly as we all know it has been planned to be held in Uganda. So, we have and we should have in this year within our objectives some activities that will help us to get prepared for the next plenary assembly”.
Fr. Makunde also called on the departments heads to revisit the resolutions from the 2022 plenary assembly, both from the business and study sessions, to asses the progress made and collaborate with member conferences to compile reports for the upcoming plenary.
Talking about the implementation of the outcome of the Synod on Synodality, he emphasized that the Secretariat should lead by example in living and disseminating the spirit of Synodality. “This year we have the privilege to live, to disseminate and to be an example of the spirit of synodality”, and stressed “I want you to then, to make sure that within our programs, within our activities we take the spirit of synodality”.
He further linked the synodality to the care for creation noting that synodality also brings the theme of 2022 plenary saying “as we did for the ecology care for the mother Earth starting from 2022 this time round, we have similarity and by the way the spirit of synodality brings also the idea of the care for the mother earth because it is journey together as human beings but also journey together with the other creatures”.
