Encouraged by Fr Alphonse Owoudou, SDB Regional Councillor for Africa-Madagascar, and Fr Denis Soto, Provincial of South West Africa (AOS) and Salesian Family Reference person within the Conference of Provinces and Vice-Provinces of the Region (CIVAM), virtually all the SDB and FMA Delegates of the Region took part in the meeting, together with the Representatives of the groups: Salesian Cooperators, Past Pupils of Don Bosco, Past Pupils of Don Bosco, Volunteers of Don Bosco, Caritas Sisters of Jesus, Damas Salesianas Assocation and Community of the Mission of Don Bosco.
Accompanying the work were members of the Central Secretariat of the Salesian Family: Fr Manolo Jiménez, Central Assistant of the VDB; Bro. Dominic Duc Nam Nguyen, SDB, World Delegate for Past Pupils and Salesian Cooperators; Sister Leslye Sandigo and Sister Lucrecia Uribe, MA General Councillor for the Salesian Family and World Delegate for Salesian Cooperators of the FMA respectively; and the Central Delegate of the Rector Major for the Secretariat for the Salesian Family, Fr Joan Lluís Playà.
Also in this seventh meeting of the Salesian Family on a regional basis, the motto was "Walking together as a Salesian Family", a theme that guided all the work of the meeting. To reinforce this concept, the words of the Rector Major, Card. Ángel Fernández Artime, who in the conclusion to the Team Visit to Africa-Madagascar had said: "In the process of renewal of the Region, the potential of the Salesian Family rooted in it must be considered. Don Bosco wanted us to be ‘family’, in communion and in shared mission. The attitudes in which to grow with respect to this essential element of our charism are expressed in the Charter of Charismatic Identity, to be taken as a framework and path to the future. Our particular commitment is to lay groups, as well as to ensure coordination at all levels, promoting the vitality of the Consultations ".
"The Kigali meeting of the Salesian Family" Fr Playà commented, "was a deepening of these convictions and a commitment to find concrete paths so that in the coming years we can live even more effective processes to grow in the sense of family that characterises us, in reviving the communion and spirituality of our charism, and to generously give ourselves to the mission of Don Bosco in the coordinates of the current historical moment of the Africa-Madagascar Region."
As in previous meetings, the program of activities included several steps: looking at the reality of the Salesian Family in the Provinces and Vice-Provinces, to note the core areas on which to focus attention (curated by Don Jiménez); deepening the cultural, social and ecclesial reality of the continent, to which to offer its own charismatic identity (Fr Soro); reflecting on the animation and accompaniment service of the Delegates and Leaders (Sister Sandigo and Sister Uribe); considering the necessary relationship between the heads of the Salesian Family with those responsible for Youth Ministry (Fr Playà); and, finally, concretising processes in which to engage in the coming years. All accompanied by reflections, group dialogue, sharing in the assembly, careful communication of the life and mission of the groups and good practices already existing in the areas of formation and mission.
This rich programme has finally led to the definition of the following priority action areas:
– shared formation on the Salesian Family and the Charter of Charismatic Identity at all levels;
– the shared mission carried out with an overall vision and apostolic passion;
– animation and accompaniment by strengthening the service of the provincial and local advisory councils and adding an element of regional coordination.
The conviction was to inaugurate a new way of animating the Salesian Family of the Region: an animation, that is, shared among the leaders of all the groups present in the Region.
