Nairobi, 24 January, 2020 / 2:37 am (ACI Africa).
At the conclusion of a three-day conference in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, participants, mainly Jesuits ministering in Africa and Madagascar and their collaborators, resolved to show hospitality to migrants, refugees and the internally displaced within the African continent, welcoming, protecting, promoting and seeking their integration in society.
“We, Jesuits and collaborators in Africa, inspired by the Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs) of the Society of Jesus and Pope Francis’ call, commit ourselves to welcome, protect, promote and seek the integration of vulnerable migrants,” reads part of a statement from the Director of the Jesuits Justice Ecology Network Africa (JENA), Fr. Charles Chilufya to ACI Africa Thursday, January 23.
In February 2019, the Jesuits promulgated UAPs as a point of reference for the Society’s missionary work. One of the four areas underscored in the UAPs is “walking with the excluded” people in the society.
The January 20-22 conference, which was organised by JENA and brought together Jesuits and their partners from different parts of the world aimed to “develop strategies for the coordination of the Jesuit Migrants and Refugees ministries in Africa and to develop strategies for international institutional collaboration among the Jesuit ministries in Africa and Europe.” Fr. Chilufya noted in his statement to ACI Africa.
The conference was a follow-up of a similar one held in March 2019, focusing on the completion of “a mapping of the Jesuit ministry to vulnerable migrants in Africa.”
