“We want to continue to create spaces for dialogue and inclusion where there is cultural and religious diversity, and spaces for encounter and fellowship for excluded people in peripheries of all kinds. We commit ourselves to a continued search for justice and the reduction of inequalities.”
This is the commitment of the TA youth group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (JITC). They were taking up what Maria Rita Martin, TA vice-president, proposed to them when she visited Kinshasa in February 2024. She encouraged them to be agents of their own education and development; to help other people in their area in their learning and development; to create networks with other young people in Kinshasa and then in other parts of the country.
Over the past months they have been celebrating the centenary of the pontifical approval of the TA, and they have held several meetings and reflected on the priorities of the 19th General Assembly of the TA. These priorities include “To weave networks of fellowship in the world: diversity, inclusion, dialogue and equality.”
Step by step each month
The activities that they have been carrying out were reported to us by three members of the group -- Joseph Kisimba, Consolata Phaka and Jeancy Mukaka.
In February -- they say -- we went out to meet the young people of Saint Alphonse College in Matete. Encounters like this encourage us to continue our efforts and commitment to our own education.
In March, we worked on youth leadership. This helped us to take an active role in our education and to encourage others.
We are involved in the educational programmes offered to us by the TA, uniting faith and culture. We also dedicate time to prayer, a privileged space for personal encounter with Jesus. Together we seek to create networks with other young people, from parishes, universities, etc.
In April, after the Lenten effort to be close to the poor and the lonely, we went to visit the elderly. We spent time with them, thus fostering intergenerational and intercultural dialogue.
In May, we invited other young people to join us and we did our best to build fellowship and share the charism. Each one brought something to offer to the others. We worked in small groups and this is the summary of our reflections:
- God loves us unconditionally; we want to share this with others; we have to learn to love ourselves in order to love others.
- Building fellowship requires taking time to listen to ourselves.
- Fellowship is a commitment and a journey to be made with others. It will not be easy, and it will require sacrifice, courage and daring.
- It is a path and a process that implies responsibility, involvement, forgetting ourselves in order to commit ourselves to others, and creating new opportunities for interaction and coming together.
In June, we again invited several people, especially the older youth from the Bana ya Poveda centre. It was a meeting focused on inclusion and the practice of fellowship. It was a time of listening and exchange in French and Lingala.
TA Youth Congo JITC.
Original in French.
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