Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
The Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) regional workshop for child safeguarding officers held this week in Kenya’s Nakuru County, opened with an appeal to safeguarders’ to reaffirm their commitment in their role of providing safety and protection of children and vulnerable adults.
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The three-day conference is a follow up of the first one held last year (2019) in Ethiopia, and brought together participants drawn from seven AMECEA countries, namely Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, South Sudan and Ethiopia.
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| AMECEA secretary General Fr. Anthony Makunde giving opening address- Nakuru |
“We are here to reaffirm our commitment, to wipe the tears from the many faces of children within our communities. We are here to reaffirm our commitment to stop more children from shading tears. Indeed, they have been shading tears for too long a time,” AMECEA Secretary General Fr. Anthony Makunde said on Tuesday, when addressing child safeguarding officers during the opening of the workshop.
In his opening remarks Fr Makunde who hails from Tanzania reminded the safeguarding officers, “We are not supposed to relax as if the issues have already been addressed. We are not going to stay in our offices and do business as usual, no! There are issues happening in our local contexts, which call for our attention.”
He reminded the child safeguarding officers that their responsibility is not only geared towards the Catholic faithful but to protect all children irrespective of religion for the challenge is a social issue.
“Whether it’s a Christian leader from another Christian denomination or faith community, whether he is a parent or a guardian who has abused a child, that too touches us because when they talk of religious leaders, we are all in one boat,” he continued.
According to the Secretary General, the workshop has given an opportunity to assess what the region has done so far in their responsibility of protecting children.
“We have taken time to do self-evaluation as a region, to see to ourselves how far we have managed to journey this road which the mother Church has called us to journey with,” the AMECEA Secretary General narrated.
“This process is not supposed to be only by instruction from Rome; rather, it should be owned by ourselves as officers in our respective conferences; by the local Church. And this has already been demonstrated by the commitments of the Presidents of our Bishops’ conferences throughout the AMECEA region,” he added.
Meanwhile AMECEA Secretary General sympathize with Eritrea which could not join in the conference. “I request you to offer special prayers to our colleagues in Eritrea so that the Almighty God may change the mind and the attitude of the political leadership in the country and allow the people to enjoy freedom of religion which is a right for everyone.”