WORLD REPORT • Youth movements

FROM LIFE TO EVERY LIFE Inside Hakuna: its Origin, Music and Much More

In a secularized Western world, the Spirit has not given up moving and arousing desires of encountering Christ in new ways and milieus. Hakuna is setting the lives of many young people ablaze, inside and outside the confines of the Church, through prayer, music, formation and service to those in need

BY Maca Torres | Communication Officer for Hakuna, Madrid, Spain

THE NAME of Hakuna which means ‘there is not’, in Swahili, came as a shortened form of Hakuna matata (no problem). Chosen by chance, it ended up embodying the spirit of those who believe that there is nothing done without God and there are no problems beyond His reach; of those who make no plans or strategies but put their trust in Him.

It is also difficult to date its origin. If we talk with some of the young people who were present at the primordial event, they probably agree that around 2012 something different was beginning to happen in Madrid.

Fr José Pedro Manglano (Josepe) was stationed in the parish of San Josemaría in Madrid and one of his duties was to accompany the parish’s young people—and so he did; they set their sights on World Youth Day (WYD) in 2013, which was going to be held in Brazil, and they began to prepare for it.

At first, the trip was organised for 20 people, but in the end, almost 100 went. The trip consisted of a compartiriado (which is what they call a voluntary service in Hakuna), in Nueva Friburgo, Brazil, with children and elderly people. They celebrated Mass and Holy Hour every day.

Afterwards, they joined the WYD with the Pope, in which Pope Francis pronounced that famous speech to the youth inviting them to “make a fuss”. That simple phrase began to light the fuse for something new in the lives of these young people, although they were not yet aware of it.

That is how Hakuna came into being; without planning it, without any roadmap or anything pre-established. It was born out of Life, out of those Holy Hours, out of those moments kneeling before Christ in the Holy Eucharist, shared as a family. Pope Francis himself describes them as a great Eucharistic family.

When they returned from the WYD, these young people continued to meet every week for talks and Holy Hours. They also began to do volunteer services in Madrid. They did not want what they had experienced to remain just a summer experience and so they started organising getaway trips to Tangier, Morocco, during Easter and to India during the summer. Friends from other cities began to join them—and so it has gone on until today.

Holy Hours

Holy Hours are at the centre of everything; where Life is received, and where Life transforms every reality. The Holy Hours are moments of silence (sometimes with music) and contemplation, in adoration of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Every week, thousands of young people gather in groups all over the world to celebrate these Holy Hours. First, there is a formative session—usually given by a young person or a priest who accompanies the group—and then, times of silence interspersed with songs of Hakuna Group Music, the reading of the Gospel and a brief reflection.

Our measure for everything is always how much love we put into what we do

In the Holy Hours, beauty is sought, and everything in them must be true. This is manifested in the simple decoration of the altar, in the care of the songs which accompany the prayers and in the recollection sought in order to enter into inner silence.

Hakuna Group Music

Hakuna Group Music defines itself as ‘a music group of the 21st century, composed of young people who, through their passion for music, wish to tell the world the truth which they live and carry deep inside.’ Each of their songs is a world in itself, as they each tell a different story, offer a different dedication and present a different composer. That’s why it is said that Hakuna Group Music is the world’s biggest music group, because every member, in every city where Hakuna is present, is part of Hakuna Group Music.

The history of the group began—how could it be otherwise—at the WYD in Rio in 2013, and in those first Holy Hours at the return from that world youth gathering. Some of the members of the group, with great musical zeal, wanted to help others to pray through music. Soon, the first ideas and original songs began to emerge.

In the summer of 2014, the idea of recording a studio album came up. There was a great desire to bring something new to the Spanish music scene. Religious music, yes but, apart from being proudly addressed to God, it brought a very youthful, joyful and professional touch.

There are situations which affect the human dignity, which we want to change

The first album finally saw the light in 2015, a new stage in the group’s career, in which they began to give concerts in different cities in Spain. From that moment on, it has been developing non-stop. In 2017 they presented their second studio album, Mi pobre loco (my poor crazy), and in 2018 the third, Pasión (Passion). Sencillamente (Simply) came out at the time of the full Covid-19 lockdown and was presented at Palacio Vistalegre in Madrid in September 2021, in front of 2 500 spectators. Their latest album Qaos (chaos) was also presented at Vistalegre, in front of more than 8 000 people. The echo of this concert unexpectedly reached the media and social networks.

Compartiriados (sharings)

The compartiriado is a social action initiative developed in Hakuna: “We believe that these are experiences in which we share and grow together, preserving the beauty and truth of each way and style of life”. It is a medium that “changes nothing and changes everything, offers no immediate material solution, but makes a great spiritual impact—breaking down barriers and judgements, getting perspective, to order priorities, returning to the Centre, to discover our own needs, to preserve the Beauty and the Truth present in each way of life…” There are situations which affect the human dignity, which we want to change. Our measure for everything is always how much love we put into what we do.”

There are currently 14 teams around the world carrying out compartiriados in various projects such as: Forofos (occasional support to NGOs, foundations, parishes, municipalities), “helping those who help others,” from food deliveries, cleaning of spaces, accompanying the elderly, excursions with children); Hablemos (let’s talk): visitation and accompaniment of people living on the streets, sharing and enjoying moments of conversation. In the mid-term, initiatives such as excursions, workshops are proposed to them; Re.play: music with children living in less privileged neighbourhoods such as Torreblanca in Seville or Aluche in Madrid, (workshops on guitar, singing, composition, musical games, talks, excursions, concerts, recordings); Mano a mano (hand-to-hand): artistic workshops to work with crafts and promote creativity among women or families with few resources. These are combined with dynamics of spiritual content, ‘Soul’, where topics such as affectivity, wounds, are dealt with; or Between the Lines: sharing of perspectives and life experiences of older and younger people based on the reading of certain texts (from novels, essays, poems, fables), creating bonds of family and helping to take care of each other.

In addition, every July, groups of university students travel to different parts of the world in order to initiate these experiences of compartiriado in those places. Last year, they travelled to Ecuador, Mexico, Argentina, Romania and also within Spain.

Soul College and much more

The latest adventure that Hakuna has embarked on is Soul College, a training centre that aims to provide responses to the questions that every person asks in life: Who am I? What am I called to?

Soul College was born out of the thirst of many young and not so young people of Hakuna, to be educated, to know more and to go to the source. “At Soul College we are not looking for scholars, only people who want to be transformed by knowledge, who want to enjoy being people”. This training has already launched several courses in theology—with the help of university professors—theology of the body, anthropology, art and so on.

The most surprising thing about this initiative is that it has built bridges, and on courses such as Genesis or the Synoptic Gospels, students from 20, 30 or 50 years of age coincide, which greatly enriches the sessions. All of them end with a round of questions and a brief ‘snack’ with the teacher.

There are also many other initiatives at Hakuna, such as the pre-matrimonial course, the revolcaderos (faith groups of 8–10 people that meet every two weeks around a formative theme). There are also what we call God Stops, Pit Stops, which can be found in Spain, the rest of Europe, America and Asia, for those who let themselves go and ‘make a fuss’ wherever Life takes them!

WORLD REPORT • GLOBAL AND SOUTH AFRICAN OVERVIEW

The State of our Waters

“If a bucket contained all the world’s water, one teacup of that would be fresh water, and just one teaspoon of that would be available for us to use, from lakes, rivers and underwater reservoirs as groundwater” (Dr James Jenkins, University of Hertfordshire in Beneath the Surface: The State of the World’s Water 2019. Water Aid).

BY Leevonia Ussi | Journalist
Dr Rudo A. Sanyanga Hungwe | Freshwater Ecologist, Pretoria

THE EARTH, referred to as the “blue planet”, has more water than land, 70% and 30% respectively. In 1969, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he described her as “a shining blue pearl spinning in space”—the blue being the earth’s surface water.

Freshwater resources are essential for all forms of life; they support ecosystems and contribute to civilization. Despite its importance, fresh water is an extremely limited resource. It makes up only 2.5% of the earth’s surface water, with saltwater constituting the other nearly 96.5%. Of this 2.5%, less than one third—coming from lakes, rivers and swamps—is available for human use; the rest is locked in the form of ice, glaciers and polar caps.

Despite its importance, fresh water is an extremely limited resource

Another vital source of fresh water is groundwater aquifers. They account for 99% of all liquid fresh water on earth and a quarter of all the water used by humans. Groundwater provides 50% of global urban domestic water—the other half comes from rivers and lakes—and around 25% of agricultural irrigation water.

When water comes out of a tap, there is no telling of its source and the processes undergone to reach its destination. For most urban dwellers, to get clean water out of the taps means raw water has undergone processes of storage, abstraction, and treatment, before distribution, at an immense financial cost and energy, and complex infrastructure is used.

Global freshwater resources

Globally, the agricultural sector uses 70% of the fresh water, with 25% coming from underground aquifers. Agricultural activities are crucial to feed the earth’s 8 billion inhabitants, employ over a billion people and generate over US$ 2.4 trillion per year.

As populations grow, the demand for food increases and more irrigation is needed. Half of the world’s wetlands have been converted into cultivated land, reducing natural habitats for animals and plants. The Indian Green Revolution of the 1960s was important in lifting the country out of poverty and food insecurity, owing much to crop irrigation, which relies mostly on underground water resources. Unfortunately, decades of overexploitation on irrigation have led to low levels of underground water, particularly in some regions in Pakistan, India and California in the USA.

While irrigation consumes the largest share of fresh water locally and globally; it also wastes approximately 60% of it through leaky systems, inefficient application methods and cultivation of thirsty crops. The unsustainable water abstraction levels from rivers and lakes have contributed to the drying up of freshwater bodies; with current examples being the Aral Sea in central Asia and Lake Chad in West Africa. The Aral Sea, once the 4th largest freshwater lake, is now a very small and salty water body.

According to the United Nations, approximately 2.1 billion people in the world lack access to clean drinking water; one billion of them in Sub-Saharan Africa, or about 70% of its population. Seventy-four percent of the global population have adequate access to safe drinking water, the majority being in Europe, Australia, and the Americas.

South Africa’s water situation

South Africa, with a large semi-desert area and smaller patches of high rainfall, is basically a dry country. Its overall annual rainfall is 492 mm, less than 50% of the global average of about 950 mm. The dryness of South Africa becomes starker when compared to the average rainfall of countries in the region, such as Zimbabwe (675 mm), Zambia (999 mm), and DR of the Congo (1508 mm); being only higher than Botswana (475 mm) and Namibia (278 mm). With a national population of 60.6 million, —68% of it urban—and a highly industrialised and water-demanding economy, a huge water crisis is looming for South Africa. At present, the agriculture sector consumes 60% of the water, and the rest is for environmental (18%), mining and industrial (10.5%) uses and 11.5% for urban and domestic purposes. The average water consumption in South Africa is 234 litres per person per day, above the global average of 173 litres. This figure includes water for cooking, bathing, toilets, washing, laundry, and household gardens. The government reported, in its 2018 National Water and Sanitation Master Plan, that by 2030 the nation would face a water supply deficit of 17%.

Water scarcity is worsened by the country’s ageing infrastructure and poorly maintained supply systems, pollution, growing demand and climate change. While 64% of households have access to safe, reliable clean water, 9% get water from polluted sources. Rural populations are worse with 19% lacking access to a reliable water supply. Worse still, over 26% of schools (urban or rural), and 45% of clinics, have no access to safe water.

In urban centres, 37% of treated water is lost through leaks and pipe bursts. Experts estimate that R1 trillion or more is needed to recapitalise the water sector in South Africa.

The quality of water in rivers, dams, lakes and aquifers is conditioned by human activities in their catchment areas

The distribution of water is very uneven, costly and brings other challenges. Millions of people, especially in Gauteng, drink water captured in reservoirs situated more than 400 km away. Gauteng’s water comes from the Vaal fed by two transfer systems, namely the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, and the Tugela-Vaal Water Transfer Scheme, from Kwa-Zulu Natal. Water transfer schemes are costly and alter the water quality. As water flows, it collects pollutants, evaporates and is stolen, apart from the cost of maintenance of the conveyance infrastructure. Gauteng water demands may sooner or later outstrip supply.

Pollution

Water pollution occurs due to harmful substances—often chemicals or microorganisms—which contaminate a stream, river, lake, ocean or aquifer, rendering it unsuitable for human consumption. Most of the supply sources in South Africa are under threat from pollution, becoming a major issue in the country and reducing the amount of available water. All sectors pollute, but agriculture, industry and mining are the main ones. Mining has been polluting groundwater sources for a long time—and still does, rendering some of the aquifers’ water undrinkable. Experts estimate that nearly half of the country’s water bodies are polluted.

Polluted water is dangerous to plants and animals. It affects people’s health, particularly for those who get it directly from a river or dam. The United Nations reported that globally 3 million deaths occur annually due to a lack of access to clean drinking water. People, who rely on contaminated water sources, face higher risks of diarrhea, cholera and dysentery, among other diseases, and in babies, genetic deformities, due to heavy metal pollutants. Polluted water is expensive to treat, as large amounts of chemicals are needed to bring it to potable quality. Urban dwellers have to pay this extra cost to municipalities.

The quality of water in rivers, dams, lakes and aquifers is conditioned by human activities in their catchment areas. Agricultural chemicals and fertilisers, and any other polluting or erosion-promoting activities will lead to poor water quality. Integrated catchment management is important to ensure healthy rivers and reservoirs.

Climate Change

Approximately 4 billion people world-wide live in areas experiencing water scarcity, with experienced shortages at least one month per year. Global warming, accelerated by human activities, affects rainfall patterns. Floods and droughts are now more frequent throughout the world. In polar regions, glaciers and icepacks are disappearing, with a devastating impact on freshwater supplies in the downstream regions which traditionally relied on them.

UNESCO reports that one third of the glaciers in the world, including the Swiss Alps and Yosemite National Park in the USA, will melt away in the next decades due to climate change. The glaciers that cap Mount Kilimanjaro will vanish by 2050.

In the last five years, South Africa has experienced droughts, fires and floods, costing human lives and causing huge destruction to infrastructure. Climate experts predict much wetter rainy seasons and drier winters, causing floods and droughts. Therefore, the nation must put in place strategies to mitigate climate impacts and improve its management of freshwater resources.

Conserving water and geopolitics

In order to meet the need for fresh water, both for people and ecosystems, water conservation is crucial; consciously limiting consumption, avoiding waste and recycling or re-using water as much as possible. This is all based on lifestyle changes.

Every individual can conserve water following simple domestic habits; such as turning off the tap while brushing teeth or shaving, running full loads of clothes when doing laundry, positioning sprinklers correctly in the lawn and garden, planting native shrubs and groundcovers less demanding in water compared to other exotic plants, allowing the lawn to rest for a few months, making compost out of food waste and applying it to the garden for better water retention, repairing leaking taps and pipes, upgrading to more water-efficient appliances, harvesting rainwater from rooves and re-using it to water gardens and rinsing vegetables in a dish of water instead of under a running tap.

World population growth is putting a huge strain on limited resources increasing competition for water. In transboundary rivers, lakes, and other bodies, higher water demands by an upstream riparian nation often leads to heightened insecurities for downstream countries which sometimes degenerate into conflicts. One of the examples is the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia concerning the use of the Nile River water.

With the myriad of issues and threats to our freshwater resources, there is a need to educate, protect and conserve our water. The agricultural sector could address the water crisis with a world-wide reform. Mines require innovations to use less water and to be regulated to avoid surface and groundwater pollution. We all need to act now!

WORLD REPORT • MISSION AD GENTES

Mission is not giving, but giving oneself

Is mission Ad gentes still relevant? The experience of a true encounter with the Risen Christ cannot be silenced. It is a gift to be shared with any person, in any part of the world. However, the different contexts and circumstances condition the way it is proclaimed

BY Olga Consuelo Vélez | Doctor in theology, Bogota, Colombia

RECENTLY, THERE was a story in the news about a nun who had been in India for more than fifty years. She served as a missionary, doctor and teacher and, instead of having her residency renewed to stay there, she was ordered to leave the country in ten days. The immigration authorities did not give reasons for this decision, but it is presumably understood that the country’s policy wants to prevent the growth of Christians and to encourage Hinduism to prevail regarding the religious practice among the population. Certainly, this is not the first time that we have heard news of this kind. It has been happening in different places around the world. In addition, Christians have suffered violence in some countries at the hands of fundamentalist groups.

All these situations raise some questions about the mission ad gentes, namely evangelization beyond one’s borders: does it make sense to go to other countries which are mainly non-Christian? In the present context of religious pluralism:
what is the point of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Would it not be enough for each person to practise their religion in which he or she was born and not seek to proclaim the Christian faith to others? Does it make sense to consider non-Christian countries as mission countries? Is the missionary mandate of Jesus Christ still valid today?

The missionary dimension of the Christian life is inseparable from it

It is not easy to answer these questions because of contemporary complex realities (not because the missionary mandate of Jesus is meaningless). However, many communities dedicated to the mission ad gentes are already offering valuable reflections which would shed light on these questions. Here, therefore, we only intend to make a few comments with the aim of encouraging reflection, without claiming to give definitive answers.

Missionary urge

The missionary dimension of the Christian life is inseparable from it. To “give freely what one has received freely” (Mt 10: 8) or “not to be able to stop speaking of what one has seen and heard” (Acts 4: 20) is an existential experience of those who have met Jesus Christ, not on their own merits, but through the divine initiative of the One who came to meet them. Therefore, mission makes sense and it will always make sense, because it is not an initiative of one’s own, nor a message to be taught, but a life experience to be shared.

Everything that builds humanity and all those who decide to do so are building God’s kingdom

The way of understanding and living the mission has to be continually readdressed in order to respond to the challenges of each moment. Moreover, it is not possible to give a single response, but as many as the places require, because each situation is very different and we have to respond to all of them. Today, we are even more aware that mission countries are not only those where there is no Christian majority, but also in former predominantly Christian countries, where secularism has increased so much, that a new proclamation of the kerygma (first proclamation) is worthwhile because many no longer know the minimum fundamentals or basics of the Christian faith.

But why to do it? How do we do it? What is the point? To answer these questions, the mystery of the Incarnation can enlighten us: Our God became human in Jesus of Nazareth and, therefore, all that is human becomes a divine presence. Moreover, it is only in the human nature that we can find and love God. Hence, the geographical displacement to other places is fully valid because there are sons and daughters of God everywhere, whom we must love and serve. However, this can be done by anyone, without having to resort to a religious confession to do so. In fact, many people do it purely for humanitarian reasons and with total generosity. What then is specific to the Christian faith? Everything that builds humanity and all those who decide to do so are building God’s kingdom (to use Christian terminology) and that is what pleases God:

“Do you not know what is the fast that pleases me? To break unjust chains, to untie the knots of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke. You shall share your bread with the hungry, the homeless poor shall come into your house, you shall clothe those whom you see naked, and you shall not turn your back on your kinsfolk” (Is 58: 6, 7).

Witnesses of love

However, when all of the above is done from a mission perspective, then it carries specificity because it bears witness to the way Jesus showed us who God is. The God revealed by Jesus is the Father-Mother who loves human beings without limit or measure (Lk 6: 35) and loves them not because they are good and full of virtues, but simply because they are His sons and daughters. His distinctive feature is the gift not of things, but of Himself. This is how Jesus made it concrete with His life: “The Father loves me because I lay down my life, and will take it up again. No one takes it away from me, but I will lay it down of my own free will. It is in my hands to lay it down…” (Jn 10: 17, 18) That is to say, the mission that is worth promoting must be marked by self-giving, by giving oneself to all, with a love which Paul describes in the first letter to the Corinthians, when he says “love is patient, helpful, without envy, without appearance, without seeking one’s own interest” (1 Cor 13: 4–7).

Today one could say to the missionaries what Paul said: “Meanwhile, we proclaim a crucified Messiah. For the Jews, what a scandal! And to the Greeks, what a folly! Yet He is Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God for those whom God has called” (1 Cor 1: 23, 24). The mission ad gentes may be a ‘scandal’ for some and ‘folly’ to others, but it is the divine wisdom that invites us to give ourselves to all, at all times; without fear of the difficulties and misunderstandings that come with the human reality that God has entrusted to us.

WORLD REPORT • CATHOLIC RADIO NETWORK

Waves for peace in the world’s youngest country

BY Brother Alberto Lamana MCCj | Juba, South Sudan

THE SUDANESE based Catholic Radio Network (CRN) project was launched in 2005, during the period of the Government of National Unity between Sudan and South Sudan which led to the declaration of independence of South Sudan via the referendum celebrated on 9 July 2011. The initiative to start the project came from the Comboni Missionaries and Comboni Missionary Sisters, who have always accompanied the South Sudanese people, even during the decades of violence before independence. Today the CRN is part of the evangelisation plan of the South Sudanese Catholic Church, which, in addition to its commitment in the fields of education, health and pastoral formation, is clearly committed to the use of the media, in particular radio, for the promotion of justice and peace in the country.

CRN’s programming rests on four pillars: evangelisation, information, education and entertainment

Today the CRN is made up of nine radio stations: The first to be established was Radio Bakhita, in Juba, the current capital of South Sudan, in 2005. Later came others: Radio FM East, from the diocese of Yei; Radio FM Emmanuel, from the diocese of Torit; Radio FM Anisa, from the diocese of Yambio; Radio FM Good News, from the diocese of Rumbek, Radio FM Don Bosco, in Tonj County, also in Rumbek; Radio FM Voice of Hope from the Diocese of Wau; Saut al Mahabba (Voice of Love) from the Diocese of Malakal and Radio FM Voice of Peace from the Diocese of El-Obeid Gidel in the Nuba Mountains. In total, the Catholic Radio Network reaches a population of six million people, in addition to some 150 000 people in the Nuba Mountains, a border territory between Sudan and South Sudan.

CRN’s programming rests on four pillars: evangelisation, information, education and entertainment. Mary Ajith, the current director of the CRN, tells us that all the stations share the same editorial line and administrative policies. The radio stations broadcast in Arabic and English, the country’s two official languages, although there is also specific content in some of the eight most widespread local languages in the country’s states, equivalent to our provinces.

Useful topics

Among the diverse and varied content of the programming, the following stand out:

1. Education in civil and democratic rights. This is essential education in a country which, two years after gaining independence, after more than half a century of attacks and conflicts with the central government in Khartoum, suffered a civil conflict, in 2013. Power struggles between President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and Vice-President Riek Machar, a Nuer, once again fuelled the fighters, causing more than 100 000 deaths and four million internally displaced people. In the current context, radio is intended to be a tool to promote reconciliation and peace.
2. Health education. Programmes are dedicated to improving child nutrition and disease prevention. For example, Voice of Peace in the Nuba Mountains has seen a decrease in malaria cases since the advent of radio by disseminating practical health advice, such as the use of mosquito nets in homes.
3. Citizen participation through debates on political, economic, social and religious issues.

Local journalists

Proximity and knowledge of the culture are essential for the stations’ broadcasted messages to reach the hearts and minds of the people. For this reason, the teams are made up of young professionals from the local communities, who communicate more easily in their own language. The radios also try to share oral expressions of their own culture, songs and the history of the people, enriching the younger generations.

Radio Voice of Peace

According to the author of the article, who worked as technical architect of Radio Bakhita and the rest of the CRN to set up the stations and make them operational, Radio Voice of Peace has programmes that have increased the school attendance of young girls by making women’s issues visible, through discussions on polygamy, child marriage, girls’ reduced school attendance and domestic violence. Thanks to this rise in awareness, they have been able to increase their presence in the classroom.

Training journalists

Over time, the Catholic Radio Network has become a training centre for new generations of journalists, with specialised courses in Peace Journalism, with a focus on developing skills for reporting in conflict situations. The centre also serves to connect stations with partners inside and outside South Sudan, as well as providing technical support to broadcasters.

At the service of peace

The Catholic Radio Network employs eight people at the head office, and there are 20 to 25 people working in each station, including volunteers. More than 200 people are therefore committed to informing and training, as well as entertaining and accompanying the South Sudanese people from day to day. This service is offered in order to contribute to the consolidation of a new country with the conviction that peace is built via the airwaves, through dialogue and listening.

WORLD REPORT • Latin America

Towards a More Synodal Church

The Latin American Church is treading the path of synodality. Gathered from all corners of the continent in an ecclesial assembly, the entire People of God participated fully, thus ensuring the synodal way of the Church

BY Ismael Piñon | MCCJ, Mexico

THE FIRST Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean celebrated from 21 to 28 November 2021 in the city of Mexico, brought together more than a hundred people, including bishops, priests, religious orders, lay men and women from all over the continent and about a thousand virtual participants.

It had a preparatory phase called the ‘listening process’, which lasted several months and involved intensive work in which members of the Latin American Church from different spheres of society had the opportunity to express their concerns, hopes and proposals about the Church.

For six days, the participants—40% lay people, 20% bishops, 20% priests and deacons and 20% from religious orders—shared and discussed the great challenges facing the Latin American Church, primarily based on the conclusions of the previous Episcopal Assembly of Latin America (CELAM, in Spanish), held in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2007.

Pains and hopes

In the ‘listening phase’, the members of the assembly drew up a list of pains and hopes felt in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“As missionary disciples and citizens of the world, we contemplate the reality, we listen to the various and repeated expressions that cause us pain and indignation,” they said. Then they enumerated the most excruciating pain and injustices on the continent, such as the crisis of democracy in political systems, the injustices caused by unfair economic models, the culture of exclusion, xenophobia, the impact of the pandemic, and the idolatry of money, which particularly affect women, migrants and refugees, the poorest, and Mother Earth.

We recognize the inconsistencies that we live as People of God which show the need for conversion

Among these pains are also those caused by failures within the Church: “We recognize the inconsistencies that we live as People of God which show the need for conversion,” they confessed. They also expressed pain for the fragility of the experience of faith, missionary passivity, lack of social commitment to the poorest, and the ecclesial community’s distance from real problems which require commitment.

“We feel hurt by the lack of a clearer participation of women and lay people in the decision-making spaces of the evangelizing action,” they affirmed. They acknowledged that only 36% of the members of the assembly were women.

Clericalism

What seemed most painful to the members of the assembly was the perceived clericalism within the ecclesial community: “clericalism, as an ecclesiological vision, is an authoritarian style of governing which excludes lay people from the discernment and decision bodies, thus becoming an obstacle to the synodality of the Church. It is also related to cases of abuse of conscience and sexual abuse of Church members and the lack of reparation to the victims.”

The discernment work also allowed them to glimpse the hopes which illumine the path of a Church that wants to be more synodal, participatory and open. This synodality lived in the ecclesial assembly is precisely one of the greatest hopes expressed by the members of the assembly, as it presents itself as “a space for meeting, open for the transformation of ecclesial and social structures that allows us to renew the missionary impulse and the proximity to the poorest and most excluded.”

What seemed most painful to the members of the assembly was the perceived clericalism within the ecclesial community

The participants expressed their hope for a more united and fraternal Church, open to lay people, women, young people, and to a diversity of identities, peoples, and cultures; a “Church on the way out which becomes a neighbour and servant of a wounded humanity.” Among the hopes, they identified, in a particular way, the pontificate and the magisterium of Pope Francis, his spiritual leadership, and his coherence.

Signs of newness

The growth in the role of women, their commitment in society and in the Church, the growing awareness of the necessary care for our Common Home, of integral ecology, and the actions in defence of human rights also give rise to hope.

They also expressed their confidence in the fact that “many young people are organizing themselves and taking on new commitments, responding to the world’s needs, ecological needs, and creatively seeking new ways of evangelization.”

Many young people are organizing themselves and taking on new commitments, responding to the world’s needs, ecological needs, and creatively seeking new ways of evengelization

The alliances and networks created between Afro-descendants and indigenous people are also in the list of hopes, along with the basic ecclesiastical communities and lay missionaries, who “bear witness to fraternity and are often a prophetic voice for the Church and society.”

Challenges

Starting from these pains and hopes, the members of the assembly focused on the main challenges facing the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean and drew up a list of 41 with their corresponding pastoral orientations. From that list they selected twelve as the most important (see sidebar), which do not eliminate the remaining 29, but constitute the main contribution of the Ecclesial Assembly to the synodal work in each region.

In the concluding Mass at the Basilica of Guadalupe, the participants consecrated themselves to the Virgin, asking for her maternal protection for the entire continent and for the whole process which seeks a truly synodal Church.

Work continues

As the participants indicated, the assembly was not only a point of arrival, but also of departure. Based on what has been lived and discerned, with the twelve challenges as a reference, the work continues in each country, in each diocese, in each parish and community to fulfil the beautiful task of proclaiming the Gospel and preparing the celebration of the Synod on Synodality, which will take place in Rome in 2023.

In order to put these twelve challenges into practice, CELAM proposed a pastoral itinerary for 2022 which included Lent subsidies which tried to implement the twelve challenges and a ‘seminar on identity and pastoral mission’ to articulate the different processes, aimed at members of CELAM and the assembly.

This itinerary, the so-called ‘regional ecclesial assemblies’, has taken place from February till May, in which each continental region has chosen their pastoral challenges according to their own contexts and realities.

Looking at the future with hope

Once these phases are over, including the celebration of the extraordinary assembly of CELAM with its outline for the responses to the 41 identified challenges, and in particular the twelve considered priorities, the continental phase of the Synod on Synodality—scheduled for October 2022— will follow and will run until March 2023.

The different testimonies that were heard by all the participants—cardinals, bishops, priests, religious or lay men and women, old and young—distilled a feeling of enormous joy and hope for what they were able to experience in those days.

Unlike other assemblies of the Latin American Episcopate, this time there was no attempt to prepare a document, but to exercise community discernment in a synodal manner. It is part of the path which the Latin American Church is taking and opens the doors of hope to a new way of being Church.

WORLD REPORT • EAST AFRICA

Food security gears the fight against poverty

In some African countries, a process where all actors of the food system were involved, resulted in reaching food security. East Africa now faces that challenge

BY Irene Lamunu | Journalist from Kampala, Uganda

EXPERTS URGE that food security is the easiest way and first step in fighting poverty. It is believed that once people have enough food, they can come out of poverty easily because they will have food to feed their families and the surplus is sold in the market, thus earning them an income. The experts also believe that once one is poor, any little money received is usually spent on buying food to feed the family which does not improve their situation.

Food and poverty policies

The Uganda Food Nutrition Policy and its associated strategies have been formulated within the context of the overall national development policy objective, which is to eradicate poverty as detailed in the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP).

This is important given that poverty is one of the determinants of malnutrition and the recognition of the vicious cycle between poverty and malnutrition. In addition, the policy is in line with the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA), which seeks to ensure food security, create gainful employment, increase incomes and improve the quality of life of the rural people.

Food security is the easiest way and first step in fighting poverty and should be at the heart of any discussion on poverty

Reliefweb.int also published a report by the Asian Development Bank on food security and poverty in Asia and the Pacific and on key challenges and policy issues, stating that “food security should be at the heart of any discussion on poverty”. The reason they gave was that food security and poverty reduction are inseparable.

They believed that although food security alone does not eradicate poverty, any strategy to fight poverty must be integrated with policies to ensure food security and to offer the best chance of reducing mass poverty and hunger.

The report also emphasized that rising food prices disproportionately affect the poor and counteracts efforts at poverty reduction in many ways. Thus, although rising food prices affect everyone, the impact is disproportionately large among the poor, who spend a greater proportion of their budgets, up to 60–70% on food. It was brought to light that poverty rates had significantly reduced across Asia during the period 2000–2010 as the pace of poverty reduction was slowed by rising food prices. During those years, an additional 112 million in Asia could have escaped poverty annually, had food prices not increased, according to Asian Development Bank estimates.

Food systems in Malawi

Meanwhile, The Malawi Times published an op-ed (opinions and editorials page) by senior research fellow Todd Benson who wrote, “Malawi’s food systems are in crisis and, over the past 10 years, an average of 2.3 million Malawians annually have been vulnerable to hunger. Yet the country’s policy approach to food security continues to centre on subsistence production.”

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) also published a book titled, Disentangling food security from subsistence agriculture in Malawi, by Todd Benson. In his book, Benson presents a set of approaches that are suggested to change how most Malawians obtain their food away from reliance on their production, to dependence on strengthened markets.

The book stresses the importance of successful participation: “All market participants must profit—farmers must always be able to find sufficient traders offering remunerative prices for their increased crop output at the same time as households that increasingly rely on non-farm livelihoods must always be able to find the food they require from traders at reasonable prices. Stronger markets that operate predictably for the benefit of producers, consumers, and traders will facilitate reliable access to food for all Malawians”.

Stronger markets that operate predictably for the benefit of producers, consumers, and traders will facilitate reliable access to food

Increases in agricultural production

However, over the last decade, one million people in Rwanda lifted themselves out of extreme poverty, capitalizing on a rapidly improving agricultural sector in which the International Development Association (IDA) has been proud to make substantial investments.

Although agriculture is the backbone of the Rwandan economy, accounting for 33% of GDP, occupying 79.5% of the labour force, and generating more than 45% of the country’s export revenues—its development has been constrained by population density, hilly terrain and soil erosion. Since 2001, Rwanda has worked closely with IDA to make on-the-ground investments to achieve food security and increase agricultural productivity.

Agricultural production has more than doubled and Rwanda was able to attain food security in 2010, producing enough on its own to not have to rely on imports. Agricultural productivity increased by more than one-third in ten years, commercialization expanded, allowing rapid export growth, and farmers’ incomes in some cases rose by 30%. This helped cut the extreme poverty rate by 14%. Between 2006 and 2011, poverty was reduced by about 12% owing largely to increased productivity (35%) and commercialization (10%) in the agricultural sector.

Food crisis in East Africa

In September 2021, The Daily Monitor published an article warning that the hunger crisis gets louder in East African countries. The article stated that, despite efforts by regional governments to achieve food security through elaborate plans and policies, the region remains food deficient.

The same paper is quoted as saying that, according to the East Africa Food Security Outlook, from June to January 2022 as published by Reliefweb.int, food assistance needs will remain high and above average in Somalia, southern and southeastern Ethiopia, and northern and eastern Kenya through at least early 2022.

These issues came up at the annual Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) summit held from 7–10 September 2021 in Nairobi. The summit focused on accelerating progress in the development of resilient food systems in the region and the continent.

At the summit, it was noted that the Tigray region in Ethiopia will face severe food shortages due to the almost one year of conflict, while in the eastern Horn and northern Uganda, many households have already lost food and incomes due to the impact of irregular rainfall on crop and livestock production in early-to-mid 2021.

With the conflict ongoing, economic shocks are expected to exacerbate the severity of acute food insecurity in parts of the region, especially in Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan.

The Covid pandemic has affected food security, especially among urban households in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda and among refugees in Uganda, thus hindering development.

Food insecurity

In Kenya, according to the National Drought Management Authority, the government has put more than 12 out of the 47 counties on red alert with figures showing that about 400 000 people are facing starvation in the coastal region alone.

According to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 2.1 million people in the arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya are severely food insecure, following two consecutive seasons of poor rains, which have hampered crop production.

Limited access to food, aggravated by the loss of income and closure of markets in some Kenyan counties due to Covid-19, has left over 532 000 children under five years and 93 300 pregnant or lactating women in urgent need of treatment for acute malnutrition.

From January to July last year, humanitarian organizations in Kenya reached 491 000 people with critical assistance, including food and agricultural inputs, treatment for acute malnutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as health, education and protection services.

Food assistance will remain high in Somalia, southern Ethiopia, and northern and eastern Kenya through at least early 2022

Increase productivity

In Sudan, for instance, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) estimates that poor macro-economic conditions, as well as protracted conflict in parts of Darfur, Kordofan, and Red Sea states, and widespread seasonal floods, are pushing food assistance needs nearly 50–60% above the five-year average.

The former Prime Minister of Ethiopia and AGRF Board Chair, Hailemariam Dessalegn, said that a lot needs to be done to increase food production and make the region food-sufficient through inclusive agriculture.

Tanzania’s Agriculture Minister, Adolf Mkenda, acknowledged, during the AGRF summit launch, that productivity in the sector is still a major hurdle that limits farmers’ earnings and their contribution to the national economy.

He said the contribution of the crop sub-sector to the nation’s GDP is still low at 15.4%, while in total, the agricultural sector contribution is also not satisfactory at 26.9%.

Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Somalia, all are currently facing different levels of food deficiencies due to drought, insufficient rainfall, conflict, locust invasion and the aftershocks of Covid-19, which have slowed down agricultural activities. Consequently, once agricultural activities are slowed, the economic growth also goes down.

WORLD REPORT • SKILLS TRAINING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The Potential of the Informal Economy

Informal businesses have shown greater flexibility than the formal sector in adapting to the challenges of the current formal recession in South Africa. A Catholic school shows how it is possible to bridge the gap between training and economic activity

BY Anne Baker | Deputy Director of the Catholic Institute of Education (CIE), Johannesburg

WHILE THE Covid pandemic has delayed the predictions of the World Economic Forums on the fourth industrial revolution, a quiet, but effective, economic transformation has been occurring in the digitisation of informal economies to the benefit of people in skills training centres. Unsurprisingly, established formal businesses take time to adapt to new methods and technologies, whereas informal businesses have the flexibility to be early adaptors. The impact of the pandemic on the economy of South Africa has been dire, with over 900 000 formal jobs lost in the past three years. Even if data is not available on whether these formal job losses have been replaced with others in the informal sector, the official unemployment rate indicates that overall, the job creation in the informal sector has not kept pace with the losses in the formal one.

Unemployment

According to the 2020 World Development Indicators from the World Bank, South Africa had the highest unemployment rate in the world with 28.74%. Moreover, according to Statistics South Africa, it reached 34.9%, in the third quarter of 2021 and among young people (aged 15–34 years) the rate was 46.3% in the first quarter of 2021.The skills gap theory has dominated the approach to the economy through various government policies from Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA) to the new growth path. The primary view has been that the South African economy holds great potential for skilled labour and the primary problem has been the oversupply of unskilled labour, inherited from the apartheid economic model. The combined under-supply of critical skills and over-supply of unskilled labour create a huge employment vacuum which contributes to poverty and unemployment. Government policy included terms like the National Skills Revolution, and the overhaul of the skills fund was designed to undo the skills deficit. Similarly, per capita, South Africa is one of the leading spenders on education, despite poor outcomes in schools; the State has prioritised education spending since the dawn of democracy.

South Africa has, however, been in formal recession between the fourth quarter of 2008 and second quarter of 2009 and various technical recessions in between before going into a formal recession during the pandemic. Therefore, the view that the formal economy lost its potential solely through the lack of requisite skill, no longer holds true. The principle that one simply had to provide training and the job market would absorb newly skilled individuals, has been replaced with the reality that the formal economy is not providing enough jobs for skilled and unskilled workers.

Skills centres

The Thabiso Skills Institute started as a project 25 years ago and later became a department of the Catholic Institute of Education (CIE) for the last 10 years.

The Institute serves skills centres that are situated in and around communities that are socio-economically deprived i.e. communities displaced during apartheid. In 2019, collectively the 22 centres within the network reached 6 387 learners, 60.2% were male, 4% were 17 years of age or younger, 58% were 18–24 years and 36% were 25–64 years old. Only 38% held a matric (the Grade 12 school leaving qualification). Learners accessing the centres within the network are 98% unemployed and 1% under-employed, with all from low or no-income (government grant) households. In the tradition of the Catholic Church, all programmes are universal, that is, they are offered to the whole community irrespective of race, gender, religion, orientation or age. Many are third generation unemployed and have limited exposure to positive adult role models and attended dysfunctional schools that provided almost no personal or career guidance. Learners experience social decay manifested in the form of violent killings and protests, abuse of women and children, neglect, high levels of rape, crime and violence, trauma, unhealthy lifestyle choices (i.e. addiction) and are all affected by HIV/AIDS. Most of the centres are run by people sourced from within the served communities and thus they deal with the same challenges that their learners and communities experience.

The addition of this component ensured that learners could have practical experience. Out of the 810 learners enrolled in the programme, 35.4% became economically active compared to a mere 8% who were not in the programme. It is worth noting that this does not mean 92% of learners never become economically active, but rather that the programme reduced the time between graduating and economic activity. More strikingly though, 57.6% of the learners who attended alternative workplace-based learning became economically active compared to the 4% of learners who attend formal workplace-based learning. We are beginning to see trends that the quiet revolution happening in the informal economy is seemingly more effective for economic activity. The question remains why?

New technologies

The recent launching of digital only banks, who have a lower socio-economic target market, a suite of new financial technology (fintech) companies and the growth in the IT sector, have benefited both the formal and informal economy and present not just hope but real opportunities for those engaged in skills training. Where previously formal structures were governed by regulation which limited the options for the poor, the online space has made access more viable to those with internet access. South Africa is a highly digitally connected country with 38.13 million active internet users. Despite the lack of direct access necessarily to fibre internet and high costs, the use of mobile phones as access points to the internet with 36.14 million users provides an expanded reach.

Private entrepreneurship

The use of internet platforms such as second-hand sites and even international platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, present unregistered businesses and individuals’ platforms to trade goods and services. Uber, Bolt and Didi have changed the way in which people move but at the centre of these global companies, are individuals who are private contractors. The same applies to Airbnb which can be found across various suburbs and economic levels. It can be said now that the world’s largest taxi company owns no cars and the world’s largest accommodation chain owns no property and this is all possible through the existence of a range of private providers who can be formal and informal.

The Thabiso Skills Institute has kept, and even been ahead of, the pace with regards to skills development in South Africa. We embrace skills and employment of the 21st century in this time of economic recovery and look optimistically to the future potential currently being seen in the informal economy.

WORLD REPORT • WILDLIFE

VETERINARY MEDICINE DRIVES CONSERVATION OF NATURE PRESERVING AN INHERITED EDEN

Building fences that limit space, in both South Africa’s national parks and private reserves, has resulted in an artificial control of nature to maintain a balance in which a greater awareness of the care for animals and the preservation of the environment is needed

BY CARLA FIBLA | JOURNALIST, REPORTING FROM LIMPOPO

A GROUP of ten young people who have recently graduated or are in the last years of the Veterinary Medicine course, originally from various locations in Spain, Canada, the United Kingdom, Romania and the United States, have just completed the first part of their trip to South Africa. Together with the Spanish-South African organization Wild Spirit, they are checking difficulties on the ground and the changes that animals experience in their natural habitat. They arrived at O.R. Tambo Airport, Johannesburg from Port Elizabeth with their fresh memories of helping to cut the horns of rhinos in a responsible way and as a measure to avoid poaching—in a reserve in the semi-desert area of the Karoo.

It is a professional theoretical-practical course, created a decade ago by Fabiola Quesada and Brendan Tindall, veterinarians specialized in wildlife, which more than 250 people have already attended. Twice a year, they organize a trip in which they go through real wildlife and captivity animal care situations. Thanks to the economic contribution by the students, the work of professionals in the field is paid for, making possible the necessary examinations of the animals. “It is a system in which everyone wins: my clients, because my time and my work to treat the animals in the reserve is paid for by the students, and at the same time, they have access to a unique and authentic experience. Sometimes we have to change the programme. They adapt to what I should do, and if there is an emergency, they come with me”, says Tindall.

In the following days they will experience the annual elephant sterilization campaign, the operation on wild lionesses to limit the number of cubs that they will have, and the total castration of lionesses brought from the zoos in Europe—since they must not have cubs after having recovered from extreme physical conditions. In addition, they will do a complete examination of some cheetahs in captivity, drawing blood to record their DNA, weighing them, measuring them and checking the condition of their skin, information that later will be used to breed them and make sure that the new cubs born in captivity will eventually be able to survive in the wild.

Veterinary medicine

“The application of medicine can be approached in different ways, as a doctor or as a veterinarian. It does not mean that you dedicate yourself only to supply medicines, but you analyse an animal from the medical perspective, its physiognomy, its anatomy, nutrition, and give advice or diagnosis, keeping those medical principles in mind. We start from our medical and environmental knowledge, and apply them to conservation, to help in the preservation of the animal species and the decisions that are made to benefit them”, continues Tindall.

It is team work, between owners of nature reserves—private extensions in which the owners must take care of the fauna who live there—and the people who observe possible changes in the animals´ behaviour every day, and professionals, veterinarians and conservationists, who must maintain the natural balance in the habitat.

One of the concepts that are analysed from different perspectives during the course is the respect for each animal: “None is more important than another, and neither are we more important than them, even if we believe it. Each patient must be treated with the respect it deserves, and that should happen when you physically immobilize the animal to inspect or practise any intervention or surgery, and also when you give a recommendation about the conditions of life in which the animal should live”, explains the vet.

Currently, the limitations in the movements of the wild fauna are a reality. There is hardly any place on the African continent in which animals are not surrounded by fences. In recent decades, man´s actions to prevent wildlife from destroying crops or attacking cattle have grown.

The objective is to achieve “an equilibrium between conserving diversity biologically, promoting economic development and maintaining the associated cultural values”

“In the big reserves we see the tendency to reduce the extent of the areas for a higher control and exploitation of its resources. The effect of this action, aimed at maintaining biodiversity, is the impossibility for animals to move freely and, finally, the need to intervene for the good of the flora and other animal species. You cannot concentrate on one species because, for example, if you let the elephant population grow, they will destroy the habitat, and that affects other animals and the vegetation. We have seen it in northern Botswana, where the number of elephants has grown so much that the trees are gone”.

Shared habitat

“We do not sterilize to have less animals and allow more space for humans. It’s the other way around, we pretend to create more space for wildlife. If we look back, 20 or 30 years ago, we had less space dedicated to wildlife and conservation than the current one. People are aware, since this is about improving our understanding of how to manage those wild areas”, says Tindall.

Human intervention in wild animals combines speed with precise action because the time of the anaesthesia is limited and you have to make sure that when the animal wakes up, it will not have any side effects that could affect its life; these are factors that generate tension and require absolute concentration.

Partial sterilization practice on lionesses in the Welgevonden Reserve aims to have two instead of five cubs, so the litters are easier to handle and they continue to meet the objective of attracting tourists interested in the behaviour of animals that, in a way, maintain the place.

“The days when animals could wander about and freely reproduce are running out, and if a reserve wants to survive and justify its existence, it needs the visits of the customers. Even in Kenya or the Serengeti (northern Tanzania), in open spaces, they have to intervene. There are remote areas in Zambia with wildlife, but the tourists’ support for conservation is needed increasingly”, explains Tindall. He addresses the always controversial hunting issue, necessary when it’s done ethically and under control, but still a form of exploitation of the continent. “The reserves would not exist if it weren’t for hunting. In 90% of the cases there would have been no equilibrium of wildlife in a reserve if it weren’t for the hunt that takes place inside, because the owner of the land generates income from that activity”, he concludes.

The way of nature

One of the differences between animals that live in natural parks, managed by the government, and private reserves, is that the intervention in national parks is more limited. They do not intervene when animals are injured accidentally, or when their lives are in danger because of their physical condition. They only do it to preserve an endangered species, such as happened with cheetah or wild dogs in South Africa, when they needed to be protected as a group.

Sam Davidson-Phillips is the conservation director of Welgevonden Reserve, located in the Waterberg district in Limpopo, in the northeast of the country. It is 37 000 hectares in extent with 50 mammal species, including the Big Five, i.e., lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhinoceros.

In the early morning he shares with Wild Spirit students, the preparation, under Peter Caldwell’s supervision—one of the most experienced and recognised vets in South Africa—of the mixture in the syringes that will be shot from the helicopter. “We carry out the contraception in elephants because in extensive reserves, such as Welgevonden, we have a fairly large population, about 115 animals, and we need to monitor their growth to preserve their impact on vegetation, in the destruction of trees,” he explains while assuring that the objective is to achieve “an equilibrium between conserving diversity biologically, promoting economic development and maintaining the associated cultural values”.

“It is interesting that, to preserve these wild animals, we must manipulate their existence, but they also need space to exist”, remarks Caldwell, after mentioning the responsibility of humans when they also decide to procreate. “It is the same with lions and elephants, why not in humans? We are talking about growth of the population, what people eat, what impact does agriculture and wildlife have, and how are they connected”.

The world has to understand the need to protect wildlife at all levels

Alongside Davidson-Phillips there is a team exclusively dedicated to the biomonitoring of the reserve. Carmen Warmenhove is the co-ordinator. Sitting on the front of an open transport in which students spend hours observing nature, she ensures that the monitoring of black and white rhinos, as well as predators, prey species and vegetation, allow the students to provide information to the managers of the nature reserve. “This is how the balance is maintained, especially in fenced reserves, because if a population exceeds a certain size, it could have a harmful cascade effect on other species of animals and plants”, she adds.

One Health

Peter Caldwell, who combines his interventions to wildlife in South Africa, Tanzania, Somalia and other eastern countries of the continent with his animal clinic, Old Chapel in Pretoria, says, “humans have intervened to such a point that they have destroyed every part of the natural habitat, and now wildlife must be controlled and interfered within more than half of the cases, to make it work again”

Caldwell, like the founders of Wild Spirit, is an absolute defender of the One Health concept, in which communities are educated, for example, in the vaccination of their dogs, so that they do not transmit diseases to wildlife that ends up affecting humans when they eat it.

“The world has to understand the need to protect wildlife at all levels. We are trying to create an infrastructure for the vets to do their job. Unfortunately, in universities they don’t teach about wildlife yet. There are some congresses, but they are aligned towards zoos, with a European or Western mentality—and there is not even one congress about Africa and wildlife”, explains Quesada, who considers that today’s slow and long term measures are insufficient.

“Climate change is created by human beings, and the extermination of species affects climate change. We know that there are several elements involved, among them, poaching, the increase of population, consumption of wild animals, which is likely the origin of the current pandemics—and of many that are still to come. Moreover, the indiscriminate consumption of wildlife in the last twenty years and the ever-increasing demand for protein from wild animals by humans. Furthermore, there is an elite group of people that spends a lot of money and wants exclusive things, and either alive or dead wildlife is one of them”, said Quesada.

World Report • Human Uniqueness

WE HUMANS HAVE A SPECIAL DESTINY

BY Prof. Dr Thomas V. Jacobs | St John Vianney Seminary, Pretoria

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGISTS point out that there is only a 2% difference in the DNA between humans and their closest cousins, the chimpanzees. In other words, man and the chimpanzee have 98% of the DNA in common. Does it mean that a 2% difference in the DNA accounts for all the advances man has made over the chimpanzee? It doesn’t stand to reason. The real reason for all the advances man has made over the chimpanzee is because of the breath of life God breathed into man’s nostrils (Gen 2: 7). The story-myth expression of the breath of life of God is to be understood as the faculty of consciousness and a spiritual entity called soul. These two entities only can account for all human achievements such as the ability of speech, ability to learn mathematics, philosophy, music, art, architecture and mysticism, just to mention a few. Since the human person is endowed with consciousness and an immortal soul, humans have a special destiny, a life beyond the grave. A special destiny for man is the culmination of the Divine Intelligent Design.

THE DESIGNER

What scientists call the Designer, Super Intelligence, Mathematician Extraordinaire, the Mind etc. is not an abstract entity, but a real living Entity. He is the God of religion, just and loving. This God is deeply interested in His creation. As such, He does not expect His creation to dance according to His divine tune alone. He allows His creation to make itself to a large degree. That is why in the evolution of the cosmos and life forms on planet earth, there is flexibility and rigidity. If there is no flexibility in the evolutionary process, there would not have been anything new evolving in nature. A ‘hands-on Creator’ who works in and with His creation continuously is more pleasing to humans than one who did His job aeons ago and rested.

At the same time, we humans are endowed with a special faculty called free will, by which each person is enabled to choose and make decisions for oneself. The relationship between God and man is not that of a master and a slave, but a love affair between the human soul and a loving and caring Father. In that relationship there is no coercion. It is a free choice of the individual. This is the way the God of religion acts. There is a degree of independence granted to creation to make itself. Such independence is also granted to the human person, who is a body-soul continuum, the soul being the image of the divine. God’s love towards every person is like an eternal sunshine and each person can choose to stay in the sunshine or move away into the shade and darkness. It is up to each person to make that choice.

HUMAN BEING IN THE COSMOS

After Charles Darwin’s publication of his book, The origin of species through natural selection (1859), a number of critics claimed that man had lost his pride of place in the world. Man was nothing more than any other animal; to claim some sort of pride of place in nature was sheer arrogance. Do these deductions stand to reason? Many enlightened evolutionary biologists do not think so. Man still holds the pride of place in the world. The faculty of consciousness and a distinct level of intelligence set him apart from his pre-human ancestors. Let us reflect on the following imagined scenario: Leonardo Da Vinci’s acclaimed painting, the Mona Lisa, happened to have been lost in transit in the Amazon forests. Many a passing animal would have been fascinated by that curious object, stared at it and carried on with their routine activities of feeding and breeding. They would have been totally incapable of perceiving the enigmatic smile and all-seeing eyes on the face of Mona Lisa. The situation doesn’t change when it comes to the world around us and the cosmos itself. The mysteries of the cosmos would have remained mysteries, until intelligent man began to understand them and appreciate them. Hence, we can reasonably assume that the appearance of intelligent beings was an essential and ultimate component in the evolution of the cosmos; without them the cosmos would have remained an intellectually barren wasteland. So, man definitely has a unique place in the cosmos.

When Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens, a special faculty called consciousness was added to Homo sapiens, by which humans were enabled to reflect upon their thoughts. From a religious point of view, a soul was infused into the human person. How and when this infusion of the soul occurred is a matter of debate. The truth of the matter is that we humans have become a body-soul continuum; not a body harbouring a soul. The soul existed before a human person came into being and the soul will continue to exist even after a human person departs from the earth. The soul that departs from a person has a life of its own. It does not get absorbed into a divine flame, like a spark that falls back into a burning furnace. The soul has its own identity and individuality for all eternity. The loving and merciful God of religion, who created the human soul, wants every soul to spend eternity with Him in bliss. This is the culmination of the intelligent design of the Divine Designer.

A WEAK HUMANITY

However, in the dealings of the Supreme Being with humans, one notices a certain trait which is clearly written in the Scriptures. While we accept the notion that the God of religion is not a tyrant, but a loving Father who grants independence to His creation to make itself to a certain extent, we also accept the fact that we humans are endowed with free wills to choose for ourselves. However, when the misuse of the free will was leading humans astray, egocentrism and selfishness, inherited from pre-human ancestors, rendered them perverts. In the letter to the Romans, St Paul quotes from the Psalms and prophets to illustrate the general human condition:.

“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practise deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom 3: 10–18).

A loving Father could not have just sat down and watched unconcerned. If nothing had been done about it, the whole of humanity would have been doomed to perish and God’s grand design would have been thwarted. A loving and just God could not have allowed that. Hence at decisive moments, God intervened in human history.

Altruism and concern for one’s neighbour had to be inculcated in the minds and hearts of human beings. In order to achieve this goal, the God of religion, the loving and benevolent Father decided to prepare a people for Himself and God Almighty intervened in human history. He chose a man called Abram and asked him to leave his land and people and live in a new place. God Almighty made a covenant with Abram and named him Abraham, who eventually became the father of all believers (Gen 12–18).

GOD INTERVENED once again in human history. A young man named Moses, expelled from the Egyptian Pharaoh’s court, was chosen by the Lord God to liberate His people from slavery in Egypt. Moses felt himself inadequate for the overwhelming job, but God gave him strength and eloquence to face Pharaoh and demanded the liberation of his people from bondage. Moses, in the face of insurmountable hardships, led a motley crowd through the Sinai deserts for 40 (many, indefinite) years towards the promised land (Ex 1–40).

CLIMAX OF GOD’S INTERVENTIONS

However, an amazing intervention by God in the history of humanity was in the life of a simple peasant girl from Nazareth in Galilee, prepared from all eternity to be the mother of His Son, Jesus. God’s messenger, Angel Gabriel revealed to Mary her role in God’s plan. Though Mary was petrified and perplexed, she told the Angel, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said” (Lk 1: 38). Upon this ‘fiat’ rested the redemption of the human race and the fulfilment of God’s grand design.

All the above interventions were preparations for the greatest one, the birth, life and death of Jesus. In this intelligent design, the role of Jesus of Nazareth was paramount and unique. Jesus, the Son of God, was a unique personality in human history. In world religions we read about gods taking on human forms to sort out some specific problems on earth. Such avathars were mere shadows of the real Divine Son becoming incarnate to establish a spiritual kingdom to lead all humans to a life with the loving Father.

OLD TESTAMENT

However, when we peruse the initial books of the Old Testament, we are introduced to the Lord who was in close contact with His people and yet, rather aloof and distant, abiding on high mountains, whose very name was forbidden to be pronounced. He appeared to have been easily provoked to anger and He readily meted out punishment to miscreants.

However, the nature of the Supreme Being YHWH cannot be so, if one understands the fullness of the Intelligent Design God had in mind. When human beings succumbed to selfishness and abandoned altruism, they drifted away from God and forfeited their intended destiny of living in eternity with God. God was deeply distressed and designed a plan to lead humankind to eternal bliss. The method used by the Lord was something which human imagination can hardly fathom.

God sent His only Son into the world, denuded of all heavenly glory, to live among humans and to establish a heavenly kingdom in the hearts and minds of His followers. The sum and substance of that heavenly kingdom is in direct opposition to the values and aspirations of mundane kingdoms. It requires a total paradigm shift in the mindset of His followers. First of all, God should take pride of place in the minds and hearts of human beings. Love God with all your heart; equally important is the need to have care and concern for one’s fellow humans, particularly the less fortunate ones. Apart from establishing a heavenly kingdom in the hearts and minds of his followers, God wanted His Son to offer Himself to redeem humans from the bondage of sin through sufferings and death on a cross. Now one can begin to understand the depth and immensity of God’s compassion and love for human beings.

JESUS, THE REDEEMER

Jesus taught His disciples to address God YHWH, Abba, Father. This was a novel and revolutionary idea for the average Jew and Jewish religious authorities. It is to be kept in mind that the Jews of the time could never pronounce the name YHWH when reading the Torah, but substituted it with Adonai, meaning the Great Lord. Apart from addressing God as Father, Jesus insisted upon inculcating fellow feeling in His followers. Over and over again, Jesus emphasized the sum and substance of the kingdom of God as ‘love God with all your heart and love your neighbour as you love yourself’.

Apart from teaching his followers the basics of the kingdom of God, Jesus offered Himself willingly shedding His blood and giving up His life on the altar of the Cross. By doing so, Jesus became the only Redeemer. As a sacrificial victim, He opened up the gates of Heaven to those who follow Him. This is the economy of salvation, envisaged by the Father in the intelligent design of the cosmos and mankind.