YOUTH STRUCTURE
↓
Bishop TX Kumalo=Liaison Office
↓
Fr Sammy Mabusela=Youth Chaplain
↓
Sr Victoria Sibisi = Efl Coordinator
↓
Youth Chaplains and Youth Coordinators
Youth office is looking at three elements: Youth Ministry, Youth Program and ACTS:
Our Report will come as follows: Youth Ministry: We had a meeting with National Youth Council at Koinonia discussing about the Diocesan Youth events and their Structures: The preventative from Clusters were there.
The Aim of the National Youth Council:
We adopted the theme of the World Youth Day so that we can make our young people aware of what is happening in the Catholic Church : Theme of the World Youth Day: “Go and Make Disciples of all Nations” Mathew 28:19.
1. The council will make things easier for the National office to deliver the message and promoting unity of the Clusters.
2. To promote leadership to the Youth Coordinators, mentors and Chaplains
3. Helping each Diocese to grow and be able to practice self –reliance or self –support.
4. Having good relationship with our Youth Spiritual Leaders/Youth Chaplains.
5. To have more understanding about our Faith as Catholic\Messengers of hope
Objectives:
1. To develop relationship with other Youth Programs
2. To give new ideas of spreading Gospel to other youth within the Society.
3. To journey with all the Youth as we are going to work as Clusters.
4. To facilitate a process of Spiritual Growth within our Diocesan level and Clusters.
5. The Identity of who am I as young Catholic.
Diocesan and Clusters Events:
Tzaneen Clusters which contains: Witbank, Polokwane and Tzaneen
They had a good celebration of Education for Life and Year of Faith. The Bishops were there to support the youth, National Chaplain Fr Sammy and EFL National Coordinator Sr Victoria.
Bloemfontein Cluster: Which contains: Bethlehem, Kroonstad and Kimberley.
They celebrated at Mass at Welkom, Our local Bishops were there giving full support to the Youth, again National youth office. It was only Kimberly Diocese that was missing there.
UMzimkhulu Diocese celebrated Year of Faith and Education for Life and Bishop Stan was there and give support.
Mariannhill Diocese celebrated Year of Faith and I was invited as Education for Life Coordinator to give clarification about the structure of SACBC and Youth Programs that we have in the Catholic Church. Bishop was there to give full support.
20TH Association of Catholic Tertiary Students: July 2013
ACTS is affiliated to the International Movement of Catholic Students. It falls under the SACBC Youth Desk. The chaplain is the advisor of the National Executive committee. The executive made up of:
The agenda of the week was as follows:
1. State of the Organization
2. ACTS National Executive
3. Provincial Representatives
4. Programmes and Activities
5. Vision and Mission
6. National Visits
7. International Visits
8. National Conference
9. Policy reviews and Constitutional Reforms
10. Networking
Education For life Event and Preparation
March until June 2013: Education for Life Office met with Diocesan Coordinators at Mariannhill early this year preparing the National Event that took place in Durban. We invited other youth programs to join so that what we are saying we are putting in practice. The Venue was in Durban because of our Bishops’ Plenary we want them to be with us. We experienced the unity amongst the youth and this was encouraging. It was a first time to have such gathering with them. The event was successful.
We worked hand in hand with KZN Cluster to prepare the National event and local youth take a big responsibility.
We did a lot of fund raising for our own event and local Sodalities. St. Anne and Sacred Heart sodalities donated food for the youth. Thank you to the Archdiocese of Durban. The National office was less spend this time for the event. The SACBC office produce Golf Shirts and Mugs for the youth. We paid minor facilities that were needed such as accommodation and Catering of the Priests and Sisters at the Cathedral where they were spending a weekend for celebration.
02 August 2013 Friday: It was our day as youth of the SACBC Region to meet at Amatikwe, Inanda, and St.Joseph to celebrate our opening Mass of the Anniversary. Main celebrant was Monsignor Joseph Kizito and 17 Priests that night. Our youth came in numbers that weekend especial the local youth in Archdiocese of Durban. Thank you for that. According to our statistics the number was 519 we have noticed that the Tent was small that night. We used Eqinisweni Primary School for an accommodation and our Thembalihle Crèche. The Parish Priest at St.Joseph Parish and the Principal Mr Msomi gave us full support. The Daughters of the Charity of the Sacred Heart take care of Catering cooking for the Youth.
Others arrived in the morning on the 3rd of August where we celebrated the whole day at St.Anthony Durban Central and in after noon we moved to the Cathedral at St. Emmanuel
03 August 2013 Saturday: Our guest Speaker was Bishop Hugh Slattery and Sr Bernadette Duffy on Saturday Morning until Lunch time.
We had a Concert and listen the Testimonies to those who did Education for Life and share our Faith as Catholics. In evening we had a Holy Walk from St Anthony to the Cathedral where we went to welcome our Bishops as they were there for our 10th Anniversary Mass. It was difficult for them because of the long day but they come and we appreciated a lot to be with them as they are journeying with us in their respective Dioceses.
The Main Celebrant was Cardinal Napier help by Archbishop Stephen Brislin as we want him on board as President of SACBC. Our Liaison Bishop was with us too. We were happy to see our bishops coming together as spend that night with us. Bravo and Long live to our Bishops God bless you all.
Beyond 2013: What is the Way forward of the program or what is the future of the Education for Life. Planning and Taking Action:
1. We want to take Education for Life as a full time program and spread the message of Change from 08years upwards.
2. Faith reflection and do a lot of debates about our Christian and most Catholic Faith Issues.
3. We want to spread and make sure all the bishops especial the new bishops in the field must take this into their hand and journey with young people.
4. Bishop Emeritus Hugh Slattery, encouraged us that we need to take as one of our Pastoral tool so that it will be easier to sustain and implementation
5. Youth program coordinator must work hand in hand with the Chaplain, each leader must know his her role.
6. Monsignor Joseph Kizito he said Young people is time to Act not individual but let us go together to spread the Good News.
7. Cardinal reminds the importance of becoming a young Catholic and we need to spread the good news by living good examples. Both Cardinal and Archbishop Brislin encouraged the youth to be responsible for their life, introducing the GOD.LOVE, LIFE and SEX.
8. We want to encourage all those bishops who don’t have Youth Chaplain: e.g. Durban and Johannesburg and others of course just mentioning the two as my example.
CHALLENGES THAT WE ARE FACING:
1. Collaboration, Trust and transparent to our Youth Leaders.
2. Confused roles of leading >example chaplain don’t know his role as Spiritual Father to the Youth General.
3. Youth Coordinator tries to overpower Youth Chaplains if he is not doing his Job properly.
4. The bishops failed to find the good leaders of the youth because of the Masks that we are wearing in front of them appearing to them as good leaders.
5. Failing to face the truth even if we see wrong we pretend as if everything is going fine and smooth, in one word we are afraid to touch the reality.
6. Change of Chaplains and Coordinators without informing the office, we experience communication brake down by having such challenge.
7. Other Dioceses don’t have Chaplains and youth programs; we end up not knowing whom we contact.
SACBC Coordinators Training: Our New Link: Peace Education
09-13 September 2013
Education for life had a training for all Coordinators about Peace Education. The week program was conducted by three Facilitators from United State. The funds came from USCCB, thank you for that.
What is Peace Education? Is the program that helps to fight with conflicts: Anger Management and other negative attitudes? The aim of inviting them was to gain knowledge and have new ideas from other countries as we have to deal with kids in early stage.
16-20 September 2013: John Vianney Seminary with Education for Life: Summary
The Education for life is a program that helps people to grow: It is good that we give such Programs in the Seminary: There are many challenges that need to be address and help all the seminarians to grow and understand the need of formation. There are many things that sometimes we overlooked and thing that everything is in order. By doing that we are killing souls of other people. As I was journeying with them and this is my third year giving the program. I experienced the following:
Let me give few examples:
1. Like personal Formation
2. Competition between Formators and Students
3. Confused role of Formators
4. Imbalances of formation system.
5. Choosing a responsible person as Formators
6. Goodness of some Formators
21 September 2013:
KZN Cluster celebrated the Year of Faith: The SACBC Youth office was invited. We celebrated at the Stadium and the Main Celebrant was Bishop Kumalo as he is in charge of the Youth in SACBC region.
04-06 October 2013
Cape Town Cluster which contains De Aar, Keimoes-Upington and Oudtshoorn.
It was only two Dioceses there but the number was good as if there were all there.
They celebrated the year of Faith and Education for Life:
There was a discussion about issues of faith as young catholic and how we respond to those challenges.
Bishop Francisco was there celebrating Mass with all the youth.
“Go and make disciples of all Nations” (Mt 28:19)
“I came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly”: (Jn 10:10)
11-12 October 2013
Sr Victoria Sibisi and Fr Simphiwe Kheswa attended the Handover meeting of the ACTS: National Executive at Holy Cross Retreat Centre.
My personal Concern about ACTS:
We need to help ACTS so that they can understand the meaning of having ACTS and why ACTS at Tertiary level. We were happy that the new Executive is willing to bring back the reality of ACTS. They even said they want to go back to their roots as Young Catholics.
As SACBC Youth Office we need to help them to be more Spirituality than to become more political.
Spiritual exercises must be the first priority. Our ACTS Chaplains n and see the patron Saint that will help them to focus more in Study and know that before they become students they belong to the Families and they are coming from different Parishes or Dioceses.
They need to be reminded that they belong to the Spiritual group not political group. Why?
Firstly: The questions was: What is the ACTS Spirituality? The answer was Go Green?
They focus more in projects than their Faith as Catholics.
This is the end of our Youth office report: Youth Ministry, Youth Programs and ACTS.
Thank you!
Compile by:
Sr Victoria Sibisi FCSCJ
P.O.BOX 941, Pretoria
0001