African Nuns Encouraged to Engage Media, to Make Visible their Ministry

“Communication is central, that is how we tell our stories showing the leadership of the sisters in the places where they are working,” Kenyan-born Sr. Wakahiu who is a member of the institute of the Little Sisters of Saint Francis told the nuns.

The dozens of nuns at the Lusaka conference were drawn from 11 African countries. Nuns from Europe and the United States of America (USA) were also in attendance.

“Communication is not only for the work of the sisters, even for the dioceses the story of the Catholic Church has to be told and it has to be told with numbers,” Sr. Wakahiu reiterated.

The three-day conference which concluded October 25 was the 3^rd Africa convening of the Catholic Sisters Initiative, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation after the first that was held in Ghana in 2017 and the second that was held in Uganda in 2018.

Themed as “faith, hope and learning-owning and communicating the stories of sisters,” the religious nuns were also encouraged to collaborate with other women religious congregations and other partners so as to monitor the impact of their services in the society.

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“Sisters alone will not be able to do everything, we need to work hand in hand with the communities where we serve (including) the government, the local communities, the poor and the vulnerable,” Sr. Wakahiu said.

“Sisters are facing similar challenges whether in the global North or global South,” Sr. Wakahiu said and continued “there is need of working together so that sisters from the North can teach sisters from the South and vice versa.”

She probed, “If we are working in the same space and all of us carrying out the same ministry, how can we work together to deliver to the people in a better way?”

The 3^rd Africa convening was funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and hosted by Zambia Association of Sisterhoods (ZAS), a women religious association formed to unite all women religious congregations in Zambia to share their experiences under one platform.