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Edition December 2003

General Information

Calendar [top]

The editors of Link wish you a nice Christmas time and a Happy New Year !

0,7 fund: Call for projects [top]

Each organisation that is concerned by the North-South issue knows about the request addressed to the government to devote 0,7 % of the BNP to North-South development and solidarity projects. Chirojeugd Flanders supports this request and wants to set an example towards governments as well as towards other European youth organisations. For several years now, Chirojeugd has transferred 0,7 % of their budget on a savings account to support youth work in the Third World. This is not a huge amount; however it is a financial effort that we will keep doing in the next years.

Organisations from the South that can present a good project, with a well-defined and realistic budget can be introduced to the 0,7 fund and address the demand to Wim Selderslaghs, Kipdorp 30, B-2000 Antwerpen.
Projects which further the expansion and consolidation of youth work in a regional, national or international frame will be favoured. Training and communication are important aspects. Local projects will not get support. The deadlines are 1st of February, 1st of May and 1st of November 2004

Wim Selderslaghs,
Chiro chaplain

ICB meeting in Barcelona [top]

From 17-19 October 2003 there was an ICB meeting in Barcelona. As Barcelona will also be the venue for the next general assembly, it was of course not a coincidence.
In fact the visit was a good first test for the General Assembly, as our African friends had some visa difficulties to reach Barcelona, which we now know how to avoid. Besides everybody could experience the Catalan rhythm of life. Apart from the regular ICB members, we could welcome Jeroen Sangers (webmaster), Ramón Canal (CCCCCE international delegate), and Jordi Bigas i Sacristà (secretary general of CCCCCE - Barcelona region). Ramón and Jordi explained to us about the work and structure of their movement. They were also present to discuss with us the General Assembly. With Jeroen we had a look at the present situation of the web site, and also at the different possibilities that are still open for us. We planned to move to another provider, and focus more on interactive parts. We also worked more on the use of the secure part for our own activities, reports, invitations and inscriptions. In the near future, the webmasters Jeroen and Sebastiaan will be looking for interested people that have close contact with the organisations and have some knowledge of IT.
Other points on the agenda were of course the evaluation of the world camp in the Philippines and the preparation of the General Assembly. We want to thank the people from Chiro Philippines for their tremendous effort in hosting the world camp. Globally it was seen as a very good project. In the future we want to make sure that there is more participation of people from the southern countries, and we also need to provide a well-elaborated follow-up.
The first invitations for the General Assembly will be sent out as soon as the exact dates for the continental parts are fixed. In preparation of this GA, we will send out forms for a SWOT analysis (analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) concerning Fimcap as an international federation. Hopefully this input will allow us to work at the GA on a global strategic plan for the future of Fimcap. We believe that it is in the interest of all of us to continuously look for improvement of our federation.
We thank our Catalan friends for their very welcoming care, and look forward to meeting again in July.

Zeger Van Besien

Africa

Ghana [top]

At the end of August, there was a national Management Council meeting of Ghana CYO. It was attended by over 70 national and Diocesan officers from the 18 dioceses and 6 youth chaplains.
The theme "Behold your Mother" challenged all of them to walk with Mary whom Jesus entrusted to humanity (mother behold your mother, mother behold your child), to protect us in Life.
The council encouraged the members to intensify the campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS through effective programmes and moral life, show compassion and love to people living with HIV/AIDS, initiate and intensify the praying of the rosary and appeal to parents and guidance to be good role models to youth.

Victor Quaye-Foli

Kiro Congo [top]

Information

In the belief that a long lasting peace is possible and in the conviction that there is no long a lasting development without peace, our organisation has been working on peace for two years now, and the theme of this year is "For a new Congo, let us build a long lasting peace".

It is a bitter struggle to work for peace in a country ruled by intolerance, injustice, terrorism, poverty due to the egoism of the rich and many other evils. Our role is important because we are in charge of the education of young people. Only youth that have been educated to peace culture can be real protagonists of peace and assure a sustained development of their country.
At the end August 2003, 92 group leaders from Lubumbashi participated in a pedagogical training course. Regional leaders, former chiefs and external instructors passed on their knowledge to the young leaders. Another training camp was organised in Kamina with 73 participants for an initial training session. 27 Leaders took part in training course for trainers.

Meeting with Louis Van Dijck, 6 November 2003 in Antwerp

Louis Van Dijck is a Salesiaan priest in Lubumbashi and chaplain of Kiro Congo.

The Kiro Movement in Congo is doing well and growing even if they are still not implemented in many regions. In Lubumbashi (1.200.000 inhabitants) where the national secretariat is situated, there are 26 groups for boys and 19 groups for girls. The political situation in Congo is calm at the moment. In the last years, it was difficult to get in touch with the other regions, as travelling was difficult and even impossible in the occupied territories. Travelling is still expensive and takes quite a lot of time. Some members of the national team visited the different groups (see Link October). Some participants have to do quite a long journey to take part in national training courses or camps. (For some, it means three days by bike up to the next mission house where they are taken by car to the next town to take the train to the place of the training camp where they will stay some days. That means also quite a lot of money out of their small budget).

Without these expenses, they would do quite well. In Lubumbashi they have their own Computer centre which offers a very good Internet connection and service computer training and even a typing service for the final written works of the students attending the local university,.The modest income enables them to cover a great deal of the expenses of the organisation. It is difficult to keep contacts with the local groups. Congo is too vast. Ideas have come up to work out a de-centralised system that foresees to have training courses and material depots in regional centres.

The Salesians in Lubumbashi are taking care of children-soldiers, enrolled at the time of Kabila and left behind, wounded, ill or depressive. These children are now 17-18 years old and are now realising what they went through during that time. The Salesians offer them a place to live for three years and professional education where they learn some technical skills (agriculture, brick manufacture, masonry) to enable them to make a living. They try to look for relatives, sometimes in remote regions where they can go after these three years.
Kiro is also working on ways of dealing with street-children. There have been very successful camp experiences with these children under the motto "It is not because you don’t have a home that you cannot be a good Kiro member".

Zeger Van Besien

Youth work 2003 in Namibia [top]

The emphasis of this year’s programme concerned the training of leaders. They were taught to manage conflict in their youth groups and amongst themselves. The most important thing was that they were taught how to manage the different kinds of conflicts so as to minimize crime and violence since crime and violence happen because of conflict.

With regards to HIV/AIDS we started with what the leaders already knew about AIDS and dealt with the facts on how to reduce the risks of infection and the spread of it. The solution is to teach youth thoroughly about it and have more programmes on HIV/AIDS. On the issue of condom use, young people felt that we should rather concentrate by keeping ourselves healthy and concentrate more on finishing schooling than engaging in sex. They also felt that condoms should be the last option in preventing the spread of Aids.

In August 3 German youth workers of BDKJ visited Namibia. They visited the Archdiocese, Okashina, Erongo, Omaheke and Central. They had different experiences in all these regions since the culture changes in all these regions. They shared their experiences in the regions which were both good and bad and the co-ordinators also shared their experiences that they had with the visitors. We then discussed the social project "power im pott". These are community projects involving all youth working in the community and helping with the improvement in the services in the community. It involves high profile people as part ons of the different social projects. We also discussed the 20th World Youth day which will take place in Germany/Cologne. The BDKJ youth expressed their wish of at least 200 youth to go to this event. They will be responsible for the Namibian youth that includes accommodation and food for the duration of the event because of our partnership with them.

Mary Diergaardt,
National Youth Co-ordinator

Chiro News from Southern Africa [top]

The visitors from Chiro Belgium were more than welcome in the Diocese of Northern Cape.
They stayed over with host families They met with leaders at a meeting and also attended a group meeting with the children.
The plans for the rest of the year are: Chiro Day Celebrations on the 04 October in the local groups. Workshops on Basic First Aid on weekends. Talent day (29 November 2003) on Diocesan level. Visits to the Regions/Afskeids.
On the 8th to 10th of August 2003 the Archdiocese of Cape Town had an assistant leadership course There were 13 assistant leaders and 4 facilitators. The programme consisted of the Motto of Chiro; Chiro Tenets; the environment; Chiro structure and ABCD. This is what the secretary, Sr. Johanna of Koelenof Chiro had to say about the course:
"As it was our first Chiro Movement course in the Archdiocese of Cape Town, everybody was excited and anxious to find out what was going to happen and what the outcome would be. During the training, leaders were attentive and responded very well at every presentation. The training reached its climax at the presentation of the environment excursion. This was followed by an "ECO MEAL"."

Shaun Dunn

Latin America

Jupach [top]

Jupachinos celebrate the 38th anniversary of Jupach with diocesan meetings

Hundreds of girls and boys met to celebrate the anniversary of their movement. From the North (Arica) to the south (Chiloé) the same spirit was blowing over the whole country on October 12^th.

Each year on the 12^th of October, the movement celebrates the "Day of the Jupachino", a day that had started as Day of the Peace, but progressively became the celebration of "again one more Jupach year in Chile".
The different diocesan teams of San Bernardo, Los Ángeles and Concepción organised the meetings months before to set up a programme so as to make it possible that all Jupach sections meet on the same day.

In Los Angeles, at about 500 kilometres south of Santiago de Chile, in the beautiful mountainous valley in the Los Andes region, there were two simultaneous encounters with 700 children and youngsters sharing their own local experiences. Games, songs and words celebrated the anniversary of the movement and culminated in a big final formation, where the Jupach family of Los Angeles was strengthened by the enthusiasm and the joy of the children and the youth.

In Concepción where the national team has its headquarters, we organised a big archdiocesan meeting. It took place in the "Parque Ecuador" in the centre of the regional capital. More than 900 children and youngsters met to play - in different age groups- track games with different tests and games in the centre of the city of Conception.
Through the different tasks and tests, they reflected on the aims of the movement and the importance of the games for a Christian and human education: To say "Yes" to the very small ones of our people.

Jaime Muñoz M.,
www.jupach.cl

Europe

Chiro-Patro day (Chi-Pa) [top]

On 8 November 2003, about 500 young people coming from all parts of Belgium met in Brussels. These young people are members of two Belgian Youth movements: Chirojeugd (Flanders) and Patro (from French speaking part of Belgium). They wanted to get to know each other better and to meet while playing games. In these two movements children and youngsters come together every weekend in age groups, in their village or district to play games together. This gives them social skills and values like respect, sharing, solidarity, etc. so that they can become responsible citizens.
Chiro and Patro had proposed to do a common activity and many young people had answered to the invitation with enthusiasm. About 500 people aged 14 to 18 participated (many more wanted to participate as well but the number was limited) and started together a day of discoveries. The day was divided in three parts: First games for big groups which enabled the youngsters to get in touch with each other. Then they were split up in mixed groups of 10 people to do some activities, to talk both languages and to get to know each other better. The groups walked in Brussels looking for special "people" that made them do some activities and tests.
The day ended with a cheerful part, people exchanges addresses, telephone numbers and this made them realise that this ending day was the beginning of a long story...

Jean François Couchard

FIMCAP DAY in Malta [top]

Different ZAK groups remembered Fimcap day (20th November) in various ways, but all said the prayer and thought about the activities which were made possible through FIMCAP membership. The leaders in the national team also celebrated the day with 2 FIMCAP friends from Patro and Jong Nederland.

Miriam Teuma

CCCCCE [top]

Meeting of youth leaders and trainers of CCCCCE
Monestir de Les Avellanes, 4-5 October 2003

Catalan youth group leaders and trainers have met two days, in the beautiful Monastery of Les Avellanes, situated in the western part of Catalonia. The topic discussed was quality control. An easy parallelism was made between the surrounding wine yards and the elaboration of quality wine, and the work in the groups. Three main topics were discussed: Options and identity, organization and management, and youth leaders’ training.
Each of these topics was introduced through a speech and the topics were worked out with several dynamic activities for the participants. At the end of the meeting, each participant got a booklet with several quality control items that they can apply to their local groups.
48 hours of activities, 48 hours of sharing experiences, 48 hours to learn how important it is to make a good work. Quality must be our trademark.

Ramon Canal,
International Delegate CCCCCE

Jong Nederland [top]

Jong Nederland in financial difficulties

The Dutch government decided to stop all financial support to all national youth movements. Henceforth the Fimcap organisation in the Netherlands will suffer a big financial loss. About 60% of the total income was government support in the form of structural support and projects. At the beginning of 2004 the support for all projects will stop and till 2006 the structural support will be gradually reduced to stop completely. In 2006 Jong Nederland’s annual budget will be only 40% of that of 2002. Some other organisations in the Netherlands will loose up to 90% of their income. Several already have decided to give up. These organisations will cease to exist.

Jong Nederland will not do that. But drastic measures have to be taken by the organisation to survive.

Jong Nederland 60^th anniversary

The organisation Jong Nederland was founded on the 6th December 1944, after the liberation of the South of the Netherlands by the allied troops in the Second World War,. This means that in 2004 the organisation will celebrate its 60th anniversary. Due to financial changes for the organisation it is not clear yet how the organisation will celebrate this event. We will keep you informed.

Corno de Mol

World Youth Day 2005 - KJG Germany [top]

"The Church has a lot to say to young people and young people have a lot to say to the Church. This mutual dialog must be open-hearted, clear and courageous. The "Katholische Junge Gemeinde (KJG), the German Young Catholics Community, will take up the statement of John Paul II in view of the World Youth Day 2005 in Germany, as it reflects KJG’s basic understanding as a democratically constituted Catholic association of children and young people: The KJG association sees itself as "Church in the world of children and young people." This is how KJG would like to foster the dialog formulated by Pope John Paul II.
KJG considers as one of its tasks to be the voice of the youth and enables children and young people to reflect on the Church’s traditions and the society in order to enhance the treasures of Christian belief and make them usable for one’s own life.
KJG represents a spirituality that cannot be reduced to the practice of certain forms of religiousness. For KJG spirituality, at the same time, has a political dimension, which is well-founded in Jesus Christ himself. Taking life and the message of Jesus Christ seriously means to do the utmost possible in order to ensure that people can live in justice and peace and to stand up and speak where there is injustice, inhumanity and discord.

In line with Pope John Paul II’s statement KJG calls for listening to what the young people have to say during the preparation and realisation phase of the World Youth Day. KJG makes an effort to ensure that this dialog will be „open-hearted, clear and courageous" "Ecclesiastical youth associations are the institutions responsible for ecclesiastical youth work" this statement expressed in 1975 by the German Synod of Würzburg has to be reflected in the preparation and realisation of the World Youth Day 2005 in Germany as far as the participation of the youth associations within the BDKJ, is concerned.

On World Youth Day 2005 there must be space for "the plurality in the society and the Church" , which has especially been made possible with the help of the association. KJG is willing to do its utmost to ensure the success of the World Youth Day and to take responsibility that this reunion in Germany will be a an experience of a living Church for young women and men and the Church as a whole, which opens up perspectives for the future and gives hope and strength for everyday life.

Holger Witting

Deadline for the February 2004 Link edition: 20 January 2004
Please send your articles to mdeblonde@web.de or Carmec@bsab.com. Thank you!

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