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| Group photo of the participants and facilitators during the workshop |
There is a famous quote attributed to the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln to underscore self reliance as the hall mark of the Church, “You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
It is in this line of thought that the AMECEA Secretariat has organized a program for capacity building on strengthening financial self-reliance of local churches in Eastern Africa. This time around the program is running in Lusaka, Zambia, organized for dioceses and other national institutions.
The program, with support from Missio Aachen and Germany Catholic Bishops, opened on Tuesday 7thJanuary, 2020 and will run up to the 17th of January, 2020.
Speaking during the official opening, Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) Secretary General Fr. Cleophas Lungu disclosed that the training program which the Catholic Bishops of Zambia already underwent in 2019, gives hope to the Church which, just like any other organization, also goes through some financial challenges.
“The program is well packaged, the Bishops having gone through this program, they are hopeful that our Church here in Zambia will be empowered. It is quite comprehensive,” he said.
The program consists of Church administration, financial management, human resource management, project planning, implementation and management among others modules.
Fr. Lungu who further urged participants to be active said one of the key focus areas and outcomes in the ZCCB strategic plan is to have a well-managed Church institution with management systems that are efficient, effective, and with best practices of managing its resources.
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| Fr. Anthony MakundeAMECEA Secretariat Secretary General |
Meanwhile AMECEA Secretariat Secretary General Fr. Anthony Makunde said though the Church in eastern Africa is fairly in its infancy, it is vibrant and ever growing.
“The Church in the AMECEA region though fairly young, it is vibrant and ever growing with resources, and it is a Church with brains. It is a Church which has got a vision and a goal,” Fr. Makunde said.
Making reference to the participants, Fr. Makunde said that they are people who are given responsibilities to see to it that the young and growing Church in AMECEA continues to move in the right direction, with a speed that it deserves, and with focus.
Fr. Makunde has appreciated the efforts of the first evangelizing missionaries saying they laid the foundation and pointed out that it is now time for the local Church to build on such foundation to make the Church in the AMECEA region prosper, develop and achieve its goal.
He however said that if such people with positions and responsibilities in the Church are the first to complain about finances, the AMECEA Church will not reach its goal.
In his post-Synod of Africa apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Africa in 1995, Pope John Paul II challenged the African Church which “celebrates with joy and hope its faith in the Risen Christ” to have a vision of increasing its financial capacity and to grow in self reliance.
“I earnestly invite the Episcopal Conferences, dioceses and all Christian communities of the Continent’s Churches, insofar at it is within their competences, to see to it that this self-sufficiency becomes increasingly evident,” reads article 104 of the Apostolic exhortation letter.
Facilitators are from Zambia Catholic University in Kitwe, the AMECEA Secretariat and the Catholic University of East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya.
Ethiopia, Malawi and Tanzania have already undergone this training.