“Informed mainly by qualitative research, the pre-conference will present opportunities for parents, teachers, and education stakeholders to engage with each other to gain deeper insights on how best to strengthen the youth to build their resilience against disruptive social environments,” the co-convener of the planned conference who serves as the program manager of the resilience initiative at LCMC said.
She added that experts from the interdisciplinary field will guide the conversations during the Friday, February 10 pre-conference that will be held at Savelberg Retreat Centre (SRC) in the Archdiocese of Nairobi.
“In this pre-conference meeting, we are inviting our partners, some from the Catholic media network, and others from our partners who sponsor us differently,” Ms. Kesenwa said.
She added, “We want to collaborate with them in terms of facilitating this national conference; in terms of what each organization can do. We want to give our partners a chance to be able to participate in the national conference.”
The pre-conference will be guided by spiritual, social, Communication, and technological resilience as the main pillars, the program manager of the youth resilience initiative said.
The purpose of the pre-conference, she went on to say, is to “bring together media and communication partners who reach out to children and young people in their work” and “use media and communication as an integral work in their apostolate with children and young people under 25 to build synergies.”
She said that the pre-conference will also give “leverage on each organization’s strength to organize together a national conference. This includes identifying common thematic areas, breakout group sessions, and logistical matters.”
Ms. Kesenwa said that officials of the Jesuit apostolate settled on young people as the target group because their collaborators stem from both Primary and Secondary schools, and that they make follow-ups on young people after they finish high school, specifically targeting those between 18-25 years old.
She urged young people to “speak out when faced with a problem” saying that expressing oneself “is the only way someone can know if you are in need; no one can really guess what is going out in your head without speaking.”
“Make sure you empower yourself, in as much we can teach you these things; if you are not really interested, it will not help you,” Ms. Kesenwa further said in reference to young people during the February 9 interview with ACI Africa.
