First-ever Meeting of Young Christian Workers West Africa Underway in Ivory Coast

Abidjan, 17 October, 2019 / 3:16 AM

The movement of Young Christian Workers (YCW) within the region of West Africa has realized its first ever convention in the Ivorian economic capital, Abidjan in which participants are discussing the impact of social justice on decent work.

The Chairman of the Ivorian Episcopal Commission for lay apostolate, Bishop Gbaya Boniface Ziri who presided over the Eucharistic celebration on Sunday, October 13 at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in Abidjan encouraged members of YCW to be missionaries of the Church in their field of activity.

"This year, each of us must be missionaries where we are by making Christ and his word loved,” Bishop Ziri of Abengourou said and added, “Drivers, traders, teachers, etc. through your presence in these sectors of activity, it is the Catholic Church that is present."

YCW West Africa is meeting to share experiences in order to develop a charter of good practices that will enable the members to be more present in society.

"We want to transmit a family spirit of solidarity, through the promotion of better working conditions which consists in the promotion of man in all its dimensions," the coordinator of the association of young workers in West Africa Djémis N'Guessan has been quoted as telling  Vatican-based Agenzia Fides during the opening ceremony October 11.

The weeklong meeting set to conclude October 19 is bringing together thirty chaplains and national YCW leaders from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal.

Delegates from the East African nation of Rwanda are taking part in the session as honored guests.

At the end of the meeting, YCW West Africa has intended to produce a document that will serve as an "advocacy” for the promotion of the human person in his or her social, economic, spiritual and other dimensions.

YCW is a movement of young people – young men and women – at work, in study-work situations, unemployed, in insecure or casual work. It was founded by Belgian-born Joseph Cardinal Cardijn in 1925.

The movement is actively present in over 51 countries grouped in eight regions: East Africa, Central Africa, West Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, Asia, Middle East, Latin America & Caribbean, and Europe.