Child migrants: alone with their destiny
They travel alone. They may fall into the hands of human traffickers. They often end up in detention centres without knowing why or for how long. The mental health repercussions may be irreparable. Maria Lourdes is just seven years old and is travelling with some people she does not know. Together with others she has […]
2021: The International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour
It is estimated that there are 152 million children in the world who have to work with 72.1 million of these in the African continent alone. Out of these, 31.5 million are engaged in heavy and dangerous work. Covid-19 has aggravated the situation. Before sunrise, Jean Pierre sets out on the rough path that leads […]
Uganda: A Bride Mukiga Girl
The Bakiga or Kiga people are known as people of the mountain. They are a Bantu ethnic group of South Western Uganda and Northern Rwanda. We look at different stages of traditional marriage. Marriage among the Bakiga has generally been monogamous and it begins with courtship of the couple. The young man identifies the woman […]
Oral Literature: The Man-in-the-Moon and his Wife
Long, long ago, the man-in-the-moon and his wife Atai, had a quarrel which led to very strange results. These two were the royalty of the skies once the sun had gone down. The man you all know, he looked then as he does now. Sometimes he was smiling, sometimes he looked grim. His wife was […]
African Youth to promote Peace and Security
Despite challenges of unemployment, corruption, entrenched political leadership, and political violence, many young people have found constructive avenues to promote peace, effective governance, and reform. Africa remains the world’s youngest continent with a median age of 19.7 years. By 2050, one in three young people will live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Still, 80-90 percent of African […]
Vocation Story: “I have tried to live with hope and charity”
Father Victor Kouande Adekoun, a Comboni missionary from Togo speaks to us of his various experiences. Just one common denominator: the constant presence of God. I was born on 23 December 1967, a little over 53 years ago, in Kodjoviakope, a district in the outskirts of Lomé, the capital of Togo. I was given the […]
Charles de Foucauld: The Gospel in the land of the Sahara
Just over a century after he died as a martyr, Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), who brought the Gospel to many and lived among the Tuareg people in the Algerian desert, will be proclaimed a saint later this year. Charles called himself a “missionary monk” and came to establish his hermitage in the desert in […]
Vocation Story: Father Zoé Musaka, Life Witness
It was when he read the life of Saint Daniel Comboni that he first felt the Comboni missionary calling. The war in the north of his country confirmed his decision to follow this path. Today he is working in Spain, open to the great challenges faced by a Church with a long Christian tradition. Fr […]
Oral literature: The Tortoise, the Leopard and the Bush Rat
Once there was a great famine on earth, and all the animals were very thin and weak from want of food; but there was one exception, and that was the tortoise and all his family. They were very fat, and did not seem to suffer at all. Even the leopard was very thin, in spite […]
John Kuk Baluang: “My vocation is to be a catechist”
“I always trust God in my life and he has never abandoned me. He has shown me in so many different ways his love and protection!” He was born in 1951, in Gany a village of Jagei in Western Upper Nile. In 1970 he went to Khartoum. There he met some friends from his home […]