IN THE FRONTLINE

Accompanying young people in the Kiro Youth Movement

: IN THE FRONTLINE; 11 May 2021; Hits: 10212

In the frontline By Alexandre Kakolo Beya, cicm

I was appointed as the national chaplain of the Kiro Youth Movement in 2003. It’s was a big challenge for me to be in charge of this Catholic Youth Movement founded by a Belgian Missionhurst missionary in Holy Family Parish, Cerca-Carvajal, in the Central part of Haiti. I had to learn not only about my responsibilities as national chaplain, but also about the Kiro Youth Movement itself.

One day, during the celebration of the anniversary of a local Kiro group in Port-au-Prince, the parent of a Kiro member told me: I’m proud of my son because he joined the Kiro Youth Movement. I asked him what Kiro had done for his son. Then he told me that before he had joined Kiro, he used to misbehave and often fought with other kids. But now, after becoming a member of Kiro , he has changed completely: he has become more polite and respectful towards his friends and other people. From that time on, I began to understand the value of the Kiro Youth Movement for children and young people and its influence on Kiro members and other people that they interact with.

In 2006 we held a reflection in view of the preparation and the celebration of the Kiro’s fiftieth anniversary. We reflected on the impact of the Kiro training, I became more aware of the important role that the Kiro Youth Movement played in the formation of children and young people from all social levels. Several Kiro members and former Kiro members did not hide their satisfaction with the human and Christian values they learned in Kiro. They witnessed how these values helped them to be more responsible in their lives, families, schools, work, etc. This is due to fact that the main goal of the Kiro Youth Movement is to make children and young people live in Christ so that they become good Christians and committed citizens serving their Church and Country. The word “Kiro” refers to the first two letters of the Greek word which were used by the first Christians to refer to Christ (XRISTOS).

How has Kiro helped children and young people? The Kiro Youth Movement is a place where all the children and young people, regardless of their social level, are welcomed and accompanied according to Christian values.

Through all Kiro activities such as weekly meetings, games, themes, annual camps for Kiro members and formation camps for local leaders, they are taught how to live together, to respect each other, to take up their responsibilities in school, their families, and communities. Members must make decisions and choices that help them grow integrally wherever they are, because they are Christ’s followers, Christ soldiers. They live to love and serve, making Jesus Christ the main goal of their life.

Because of the great significance of the Kiro Youth Movement, we gave heart and soul to celebrating its 50th anniversary with a program that stretched out over three years, from 2007 to 2010. In fact, Kiro is a national Youth Movement which is present in all the provinces or dioceses of Haiti... It has over 600 local groups and more than 62,000 members. That’s why in 2005, we elaborated preparatory and celebratory program on the local, regional, diocesan, and national levels to celebrate this great anniversary. We officially launched the celebrations for the 50th anniversary in November 2007 on the Feast of Christ the King, the patron of Kiro members. We organized many activities to reflect on the impact of the formation Kiro offers to children and young people in Haiti, so that we can accompany them better, helping them to deal with their concerns, worries and future projects. We also held many activities to spread the word about the Kiro Youth Movement in the Haitian society.

Through all these activities, we helped the Kiro members to become more involved in service of others through Christ, especially in order to build a just and brotherly society. Everyone has his rights and duties in mutual respect and in searching for the common good. This is very important because in this society, where there are not many good role models, where people are often victims of exploitation and injustice, and where there is poverty, division, corruption, selfish- ness, Kiro training empowers these thousands of children and young people to act responsibly for their human and Christian growth and for the wellbeing of their communities. We understood the need to look for more and better means to accompany these children and youth. That is why we committed ourselves to building a youth training center. The Haitian government, in recognition of our formation work with children and young people, gave us a plot of land on which to build this Center.

The preparation and celebration of Kiro’s golden anniversary met with many obstacles. Between 2008 to 2010, many natural disasters hit Haiti. We will never forget 2008, the year that 4 hurricanes hit the country. Then in 2010, the terrible earthquake on January 12th followed by hurricane Thomas and the cholera epidemic as well. All of these caused considerable damage and many deaths, some of them Kiro members with whom we had been preparing our celebrations. In all we lost some 70 Kiro members, victims of the January 2010 Earthquake. May their souls rest in peace.

All of these events hit us incredibly hard, and we often asked ourselves if it was really worthwhile carrying on with the preparations. However, along with these terrible events, there were strong moments of solidarity and mutual help. Even if Kiro members were victims of the earthquake, even if they lost their family members, their friends and their houses, they involved themselves, according to their Kiro training, in relief services for the victims of these disasters and in the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake.

In the early hours after the earthquake, when people were crying not knowing what to do, when there was no electricity, no water, no communication, many Kiro members were present to rescue people from collapsed houses, to take injured people to hospitals, to set up shelters and bring food and water to people who had lost their houses. Local Kiro groups visited their members and families to encourage them. Kiro members were talking with people, praying with them, and especially playing games to encourage children and young people in the refugees’ camps.

So, we worked on comforting our suffering brothers and sisters. We said to ourselves: no catastrophe, especially not an earthquake, can destroy our projects. Rather, it gave them new meaning, a new perspective. Therefore, we gave an important place to the victims of all these disasters in the preparation and celebration of Kiro’s 50th Anniversary. The golden jubilee taught us to work together, to unite in order to help the victims of the disasters: cleaning flooded cities, sharing tents, distributing food and water, building shelters, giving psychological assistance, campaigning for the prevention and treatment of cholera. Taking care of the victims of the earthquake and hurricanes became part and parcel of our preparation and celebration.

For the closing celebration on national and diocesan level, we chose the theme “ Kiro, 50 years in the service of Christ, let’s celebrate it with love” ( Kiwo, 50 an nan sevis Kris la, ann fete l nan renmen). We can work together to make things better despite disasters, the loss of human lives and destruction. That’s why we could also participate with other Youth Movements, in the formation of aa national Council of Haitian Youth. We decided to work together in order to better promote young people’s interests and to contribute as Youth Movements to the well- being of Haitian society.

All the training camps we had planned for the celebration of the golden anniversary of Kiro all over the country, became places where we gathered together local Kiro leaders to help them understand the destructive forces of nature and to teach them what they should do before, during and after such events. In fact, in the more remote areas of the country where there is no media available and many people believe that natural disasters are God’s punishment, Kiro members were instrumental in teaching people in their communities what they had learned about natural disasters and the people’s responsibilities towards the environment and how to protect themselves from such disasters.

In spite of these disasters, we were able to hold all of our planned activities and to close the golden jubilee celebrations. We built and inaugurated a monument marking the 50th anniversary of Kiro in Cerca- Carvajal, in the central part of Haiti where Kiro Haiti was founded. Members from all around the country gathered to remember Father Joseph Berghmans, the Belgian Missionhurst missionary who founded the Kiro Youth Movement in Haïti and Father Noel Martens, another Belgian Missionhurst missionary who was Kiro’s first national Chaplain.

This inauguration was followed by a national congress from November 11 to 14 where we started reflecting on the next 50 years of Kiro. During the congress there were several activities, such as a National Kiro Fair. On November 21, 2010, the day of the golden jubilee and the Feast of Christ the King, there were several diocesan socio-cultural and religious activities to mark the end of these celebrations that had lasted, including the preparations, almost five years.

I would like to close with an enormous «Thank You» to everyone, to all the organizations and institutions that have helped us to realize and celebrate Kiro Haiti’s golden jubilee, especially Missionhurst promotion with all its benefactors. Thank you too, to all the Kiro members who gave their best despite the hard times, for holding Kiro Haiti’s torch high.

The celebration is over, but the work continues. We still believe strongly in the necessity of accompanying children and young people according to Christian values. It’s one of the best ways to make them responsible for themselves and for the society in which they are living in and in which they are called to take up their responsibilities at all levels. With Kiro training and Christ’s Gospel, they will be able to face this challenging world with its difficulties and its promises.

"Strenghen Your brethren" (Lk 22, 32)

: IN THE FRONTLINE; 18 March 2021; Hits: 8888

Jos Das By Jos Das, cicm

In my letter sent to my family, benefactors and acquaintances at the end of the year, I wrote: “I do not build churches or schools, I do not work for a development project, but I work for the formation of people.” A religious reacted to these words and congratulated me for my way of being a missionary. Besides, I am grateful to my predecessors who built this beautiful center that allows me to be a missionary in the field of ongoing formation and animation.

The CTV-Mbudi, the Théophile Verbist Center, opened its doors fourteen years ago. Our confrere, the late cardinal Frederic Etsou blessed it on January 3, 1998, on the feast of the Epiphany, an eminently missionary feast. Since its opening, the successive teams in charge developed progressively a program of activities. At first, they organized mainly retreats. However, when limiting itself to these activities, the Center remained mostly empty and finally in deficit. The constraining circumstances compelled the people in charge to examine how the Center could play its animation and formation role in a missionary spirit and according to our CICM charism.

Currently, the team organizes retreats, especially during the months of July, August and September and many of them are animated by CICM confreres. During the other periods of the year, we offer one- week sessions on a theme suggested by the religious, such as “The spiritual enneagram”, “Affective and human maturity in our ministry”, “The function of religious leadership”, “Managing one’s emotions”, “The mid-life experience.”

Since a few years, the CTV team offers a twelve-week renewal program, called R-12, for religious and diocesan priests. It aims at helping the participants assess their own life in all its aspects: human, psychological, theological, spiritual, apostolic, pastoral, communitarian. Competent and experienced facilitators accompany them during three months.

It is a community experience that takes place in an African environment and with facilitators, most of whom are Africans. This should contribute to a renewal that is true to the concrete life of each participant. Some participants make use of this moment of coming to rest and of standing back to thank God for his goodness and his presence in their lives. Other people see it as a chance to heal inner wounds, as an opportunity for a new beginning. At the end of the session the participants are aware that they have been given new impetus in view of a more beautiful and more fulfilling life, under God’s watchful eye.

A second session, called R-6 that is already at its 14th edition, is meant for men and women called to the ministry of initial formation in the institute of consecrated life to which they belong. Six weeks is not much. Even in a precarious situation, we must do whatever we can to have the participants prepared for this job, because the vocation and the future of young people who respond generously to God’s call are at stake. We know that God is the first and principal formator of hearts, but he does not act in a vacuum. His concern for those he calls to follow his Son radically goes through other people, the seniors. They wish to fulfill this task competently, confidently, and in a spirit of faith. It is a question of collaborating with God himself. In fact, it is an initiation to the ministry of formator that wants above all to be practical, integrated, close to the realities of the African world.

Recently, the religious superiors have also requested the team of the Center to foresee a period of intense formation as a preparation for their young sisters’ perpetual vows. So, this year, we prepare a first six-week session to respond to this request. The program comprises three parts. The first part wants to bring the religious to a better self- knowledge. The second part will help them to deepen the knowledge and the practice of their religious life, by reflecting on the three vows and on community life. The last part will help them to better understand their mission as religious in the Church and in the world and to commit themselves with enthusiasm to the present reality.

The entire program wants to invite the participants to review their religious life in view of a fully conscious final commitment that must be an answer of their whole being to the Lord’s call of love. The method is active and participative. The speakers will introduce the themes and invite the participants to work in small groups, followed by sharing sessions and additional exchanges. Personal accompaniment is foreseen and highly recommended, so that participants may deepen and integrate what they have learned, test their motivations and further deepen their religious life in Christ.

CTV wants to be an instrument in the service of the local Church in the Republic of Congo in particular, and of Francophone Africa in general; an instrument in the service of diocesan priests, religious, but always with a missionary perspective.

A ministry of animation, formation and accompaniment calls for a welcoming and listening mind and attitude. To tell all those who come to us what Jesus said to his disciples when they came back from their mission: “Come away to some lonely place, and rest for a while” (Mk 6:31). Yes, after several years of commitment, every consecrated person feels the need to stop and have a time of renewal, which is essential for physical, psychological and spiritual health. Our ministry implies that we sit on the edge of the well and listen to their life’s story, as Jesus did with the Samaritan woman. To join pilgrims on the road, who are sometimes discouraged, tired, disappointed and frustrated by the blows of life, and to go part of the way with them, as Jesus did with the disciples of Emmaus, so that they may pursue their trip with a burning heart. To listen to God seekers in the silence of the night, as Jesus welcomed Nicodemus. To welcome everybody and to listen with sympathy, without judging or condemning. To invite them to have trust in God who knows the hearts and welcomes everybody the way he is, with his joys and sorrows and failures, his talents and limitations. If the need arises, say a word of forgiveness, mercy, healing to those who went a bit astray, as Jesus did for the adulterous woman: “Neither do I condemn you. Go away and don’t sin any more” (John 8:11). Finally, to invite them to let themselves ask the essential question that Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” A question that can arouse a new answer, generous, humble but enthusiastic: “Yes, Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” (cf. John 21:15 ... 17). Then, they will hear the initial call again: “Follow me.” And with the risen Lord, present at the heart of their lives, they can go far, very far.

To welcome, sit, listen, encourage, restore confidence, open horizons, rejoice with those who rejoice, share the sorrows of those who mourn, strengthen those who doubt: is this not what Jesus has done? Indeed, every person who met him, resumed his journey, transformed and renewed.

So, we try to be missionaries in Jesus’ way.

The day participants ‘come down the mountain’ with a joyful heart and leave the CTV-Mbudi oasis of silence and peace to set off again on the road to their mission field, their hearts are full of feelings of gratitude for what the Lord has realized. We accompany them with our prayers and we make Saint Paul’s words our own:

“I thank my God whenever I think of you, and every time I pray for all of you. ...

God knows how much I love you as Christ Jesus loves you ....

May your love always increase more and more and never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you can always recognize what is the best” (Phil. 1:3 ... 10).

Saint Louis University (1911-2011): A centennial legacy of educational mission ad extra

: IN THE FRONTLINE; 02 February 2021; Hits: 9830

Jessie M Hechanova By Jessie M. Hechanova, cicm

Introduction

In his monumental circular The Immaculate Heart Missions: A centennial (1862-1962) commemorating the centenary of the CICM, Superior General Omer Degrijse sees the Philippine missions as integral to the one hundred years of the CICM. He further generously notes that in the Philippines “the crowning achievement in the field of school apostolate is Saint Louis University in Baguio.” Thus, in the history of the CICM missions in the Philippines, Saint Louis University (SLU) is truly one important contribution of the CICM to the growth of the people of Cordilleras in the area of providing quality education and Christian human formation.

Historical significance

The pioneer CICM missionaries in the Philippines started and complemented their work of evangelization through education. Their main mission strategy, upon their arrival in the Mountain regions of the Cordilleras in Northern Philippines in 1907, was to build churches and open schools in the indigenous communities they engaged themselves in. Their guiding principle was “a mission to transform.” Meaning to say, the CICM presence was essentially a transformative one. Changing the society’s values according to the Gospel principles was the CICM way, which was accomplished more systematically through education.

Called to conversion, the CICM missionaries constantly applied themselves to the process of improving their lifestyles relative to the needs of their communities, thus making themselves effective witnesses to the Gospel. School apostolate was one invaluable missionary milieu of integral transformation that CICM missionaries long recognized. SLU as a CICM institution maintains that missionary legacy.

The legacy of SLU as a CICM school can be best appreciated when measured against the backdrop of a remarkable century of missionary service to the people of the Mountain regions in Northern Philippines. That is, for the past one hundred years it has played a vital role in the socio- cultural development and Christian formation of the people of the Cordilleras.

Originally founded as a small mission school in 1911 by the humble pastor of Baguio, Fr Séraphin Devesse, and eventually established as a college by Bishop William Brasseur and Raphael Desmedt in 1952, and thereafter expanded and elevated into a university beginning in 1963 with competent CICM rectors and presidents – SLU since then has evolved into an important center of education in the Philippines today.

SLU today

In carrying out the mission to transform society through education as shown by the early CICM missionaries, SLU today continues to revitalize its missionary calling by expanding its institutional reach through academic programs of international standards.

SLU is the premier higher education institution of the CICM in the Philippines. It is the largest university north of the Philippines’ capital and one of the largest in the country. SLU has an average student population of 27,000 in the tertiary level spread among its four main campuses, which are well situated in its present 12- hectare total land area. SLU has a proven record of academic excellence with school programs getting the highest level of accreditation in the country. Benchmarked against the international standard of research and teaching quality, SLU is recently ranked among the top 200 Asian universities by the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings.

The multicultural and international character of SLU as a CICM institution of higher learning, for which it has consistently received positive rankings, is essentially in keeping with the CICM orientation of mission at extra. Education achieved along the lines of mission ad extra redefines the way society understands and does education today. That is, the mission of education ad extra as envisioned and implemented by CICM schools like SLU can provide a new paradigm for making education finally work for the common good.

The attainment of the common good is in principle a task ad extra. It involves, first and foremost, a general grasp of what it means to live in mutual respect for one another. It also means the willingness to transcend one’s own interests and thus to be solicitous of the other’s welfare. Mission ad extra is a social orientation to reach out to the other who is in need. That is Catholicity at work ! In an educational perspective ,it implies designing other pedagogical tools, which are universal and inclusive enough to make learning meaningful to every student. SLU, fairly put, has been working towards that direction.

Indeed, SLU endeavors to provide an inclusive academic environment, where students coming from different cultural backgrounds, foreign countries, and diverse religious beliefs, can meaningfully interact with and learn from one another.

The university also continues to attract students and scholars from around the world. The presence of such diverse ethnic and social groups in the campus certainly makes SLU an enduring mission area for the CICM to preach the Good News!

Hence, from the present individualist, consumerist, and exclusivist paradigm of education in society, a missionary education like that offered by SLU’s can radically bring about a Gospel-inspired education in social justice, human rights, and environment preservation towards a sustainable future.

Aside from the outstanding academic training offered by SLU to the people of the Cordilleras, it has also seriously taken into account its pastoral responsibility as a missionary higher education institution. Following its CICM identity, SLU is commissioned by the CICM, by the Church, and by God to be an instrument and source of hope for the marginalized sectors of society.That is, since SLU advances an education from a Christian perspective, it is incumbent upon its teaching function to lead the way towards the building of the Kingdom of God in the midst of the poor.

Thus, dedicated to the promotion of the wellbeing of the most vulnerable members of society, SLU as a CICM university has several pastoral institutes as auxiliary offices to the office of the president. That is, faithful to the CICM time- honored mandate “to care for the abandoned children,” SLU has, among others: 1) the Sunflower Children’s Center, which gives psycho-therapeutic intervention and psychological assessment to children with special needs; 2) the SLU Sunflower Centennial Halfway Home for Boys, which provides a protective refuge for boys who are victims of abuse or neglect; and, 3) the Institute for Inclusive Education Foundation, which attends to learners with visual impairment.

SLU tomorrow

SLU - the landmark educational institution of the CICM missions in the Philippines as the “Light of the North” and tasked with a mission to transform society - will continue to be a specialized apostolate of the CICM. For it promotes the primary missionary goal of evangelization to the local students as well as to the international students of every culture through inclusive education.

That makes school apostolate a mission priority for the CICM, since evangelization and education are inextricably inseparable. That is, education from a Christian and missionary perspective implies the effective proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to an evolving society, that is, outside geographical and cultural boundaries.

Accordingly education aims at the integral growth of society into the makings of the Kingdom of God in our midst, where every human person is included and allowed to experience the fullness of life. In other words, CICM education at SLU is ultimately soteriological in that it is concerned with the attainment of salvation through the unity of evangelization and education.

Conclusion

True to the CICM calling of conversion, SLU today must take to heart its own institutional life of conversion as a necessary condition of transformation. Transformation at all fronts is by and large a function of conversion, of that change of heart, that purifies the old habits of self-righteousness and indifference to new things.

In short, at the core of SLU’s transformation is a spirit of renewal that animates it to transform itself and the society it is called to serve. To reiterate: Before SLU can ever dream of transforming the society around it, it has the concurrent task to transform itself so that it can become indeed an instrument of transformation for others.

Beyond statistics, a century of SLU’s sustained missionary presence necessarily bears witness to the significant impact it has made on the improvement of the people of the Cordilleras.

It has given them a different way of life that is inspired by the life and message of Jesus Christ. It has taught them compassion and service to society. Finally, it has molded the youth who are entrusted to its care for a holistic human formation according to the values of the Gospel.

The CICM was founded 150 years ago primarily to preach the good news, to establish Christian communities and to take care of the abandoned children and the marginalized. SLU today as a CICM university preserves this CICM mission ad-extra by providing quality education that includes rather than excludes. Joining all other CICM pastoral entities around the world in celebrating the 150th foundation anniversary of the congregation , SLU renews its commitment to be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, the first missionary and teacher, who commands his disciples : “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” (John 20: 21).

So that the little ones may understand

: IN THE FRONTLINE; 11 January 2021; Hits: 26691

By Father Herman De Vriendt, cicm

Since I arrived in Senegal in November 1986, I felt that to be at ease “in my Father’s house” (the Church and Senegalese society), I should learn the Wolof language, otherwise I would stay in front the door of this ‘house’. Relying on Article 13.2 of our Constitutions that says “Integration requires that we know the language of the people we serve”, Together with confreres we looked for a suitable teacher and we found one at the Center for Applied Linguistics of Dakar (Dakar University), in the person of Jean Leopold Diouf, a researcher in Wolof. He helped me in my infancy to become a highly qualified expert.

Wolof is the first national language of Senegal. Despite the fact that only 40% of the population is ethnic Wolof, 85% of the population speaks that language.

After working two of us, I and Mr. Diouf, we saw that a group of ‘ Wolof secretaries’, could increase the productivity of the work. Thus in December 1990, we founded together with some youth of the parish of Diamaguène a working group. Mr. Diouf trained them in Wolof, a language they spoke well, but they could neither write nor describe it, meaning to say they could not explain its language structures.

Shortly after that, this working group was named Diisoo Wolof Project (PWD). ‘Diisoo is a Wolof word meaning “dialogue” we wanted to work consulting one another regularly.

That I may feel at ease “in my Father’s house” is a strong motivation to learn the language of the people to whom I am sent. But more important than my feeling is the people who welcomed me, especially the “little” people, those who have not had the chance to study and learn other languages. Thus the motto of our Wolof Project has become “ SO THAT THE LITTLE ONES MAY UNDERSTAND".

In view to respect the cultural heritage of the Senegalese people, the Diisoo Wolof project from the beginning of its existence (1990), has endeavored to promote the language by translating texts in Wolof. So it was an opportunity for Senegalese people to read and learn not from a foreign language but through a language that is specific to the local people.

With Pope John Paul II in his speech at the UN General Assembly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its founding (October 5, 1995), we read: “Each nation has a ‘fundamental right to exist’, to ‘keep its own language and culture, by which a people expresses and defends what I would call his’ spiritual sovereignty’. “

With the group Wolof Project, we have worked and are still working on the translation and revision (retranslation 43 and rewriting in the spelling recognized by an official decree) of the biblical, liturgical, catechetical and pastoral texts. Previous missionaries had done a remarkable job. But the language evolves, therefore the need for a revision of the texts. In addition, catechetical and pastoral challenges of today are not those of thirty years ago.

After some years of existence, we also committed ourselves to training Women in several literacy centers. This is to reach out to young women who had not had the opportunity to go to school regularly. “In search of the little ones, so that they may understand!"

Following the previous steps, the Wolof Project has organized for years basic courses for foreigners: missionaries and development workers take in our centers a basic course of three months (December, January and February).

We notice that requests sent to Diisoo Wolof Project for intervention (oral or written) are increasing from year to year. Since four years ago the Apostolic Nuncio has requested us, on behalf of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, to translate the message to the Muslims for the end of Ramadan. We are asked to prepare liturgical texts on the occasion of ecclesial events, diocesan or national (pilgrimage, ordinations, jubilee etc.).

For presidential elections (February 26, 2012) several translation requests have arrived on our desk: the message to the nation on the occasion of New Year by the Archbishop of Dakar, Cardinal Theodore Adrien Sarr, the message of the Bishops Conference and interventions of the diocesan Commission for Justice and Peace to support Senegalese citizens in preparing for these elections.

And for three and a half years, the Diisoo Wolof Project, has embarked on TV shows. We, a group of ten people, broadcast twice a month (the second and fourth Sunday) a TV program of 55 minutes under the name “Laudemus Dominum” on RDV channel (= Dunyaa Radio Vision), entirely in Wolof.

This program is designed entirely in Wolof, prepared and conducted by Project: we write the script, distribute to the various presenters and rehearse with them, we do the recording, editing, movie rendering and DVD burning , which eventually is given to the RDV radio and television as a finished products. We operate as an “external production house.”

Note also that although the spoken Wolof is pervasive in society, the written language is not. That’s why our programs are accompanied with subtitles in Wolof: a kind of large-scale literacy.

Besides the choice of the form (the Wolof as language of communication), our program ‘Laudemus Dominum’ also wants to promote the cause of justice and peace through its content. This content is divided into three parts. In the first part, we present a word of the Sunday liturgy (2nd reading, which is not always developed in the homilies).

In the second part, we explain the social doctrine from Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical “Caritas in veritate ‘, where he defends the poor, condemns unlimited capitalism, and advocates for environmental protection to safeguard our planet ‘Earth’. In the third part, entitled “Demb ak Tey” (meaning in Wolof for “Yesterday and Today”), we present recent or present events in the news. Besides the events of the local church, this part gives us the opportunity to present several programs such as “Africae Munus,” there is also the Post-Synodal Exhortation on the Church in Africa.

Does our message reach the “little ones? Quite Difficult to assess with sophisticated polls like in Europe. But word of mouth, we learn something regularly. As an example.

During a yearly reporting training session of Catholic journalists in Ziguinchor (Casamance - Senegal), the participants were sent to a village in the bush. Suddenly, a village woman recognized one of our news reporters at ‘Laudemus Dominum’ in Wolof, and called her friends. In an 45 instant our reporter was surrounded by a group of women, who began to sing in Wolof: “RDV ko moo yor,” which means: “Radio Dunyaa Vision is leading.” The reason for this fame was the exclusive use of Wolof.

Leaving the Police station for Foreigners, where I had my residence permit renewed for 2011, a woman recognized me and said: “Sir, I recognize you: it is you who are doing TV and radio programs in Wolof. I am Muslim, but that does not stop me from watching your Catholic programs on TV".

According to Cicm our constitutions, we are dedicated to the Incarnate Word. Article 12 mentions the letter to the Philippians 2, 6-7: “Jesus Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness “: He came so that we may understand. The Language is the royal door to enter “the house of our Father” and meet the people to whom we are sent, especially the little ones.