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Champagnat Global Week 2024: Marist Volunteering as a tool for building a culture of encounter and solidarity

Third day of Champagnat Global Week 2024

Following the itinerary of a tour of the different networks that animate the General Administration, this Wednesday’s sessions were dedicated to solidarity.

Javier Llamas, Executive Secretary of Champagnat Global, began by greeting all the participants and reminding them of the programme that is being held throughout the week. José Sánchez, Director of the Secretariat of Education and Evangelisation, recalled that today we are celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Brother Basilio Rueda: ‘We need to update the Institute in order to help all children and young people’.

Br José also responded to the question ‘Why a network?’: ‘The network is what responds to the needs of todayand it takes time to weave it’, he explained. The director of the Secretariat concluded his speech with a word of thanks to the Solidarity Secretariat.

After leading the prayer, Brother Diego Zawadzky, Deputy Director of the Solidarity Secretariat and CMI, explained that ‘as Marists, we believe that we can respond to the different challenges of today through voluntary work’. Br. Diego also reviewed the calls that arose in the last chapter and assured us that through volunteering ‘we have an effective way of responding to these calls’. ‘From here I would like to extend an invitation to continue to support volunteering’, said Br Diego.

For more information on volunteering see the FMS page.

On the other hand, Juan Pablo Rojas invited reflection on the question that as Marists, what are we called to? and invited all the participants to ‘go beyond’. He then explained that there are different options for volunteering :

  • Local volunteering: from your own place of residence.
  • Provincial volunteering: within each administrative unit you can have a broader volunteering experience.
  • Interprovincial volunteering: such as the LaValla200 projects, or the Fratelli Project, and involves a greater time commitment.
  • Professional volunteering: this involves helping out depending on the profession you are involved in.

Br. Chris Wills during the 9 a.m. session and Br. Valdicer Fachi during the 4 p.m. session moderated a round table of people who explained their experiences of Marist voluntary service:

‘Being a missionary today has another face, which is volunteering. When we speak of voluntary service, we think of it as a network. The dimension of interculturality is one of the advantages that can be experienced, but without doubt, volunteering is an experience of life and of shared mission’, assured Brother Fachi, who put several questions to the participants in the round table.

Rodrigo Gris: ‘A document from Pope Francis together with some words from Br Emily Turú led me out of my comfort zone and towards volunteering with my wife Argie. Spirituality is very important so that we don’t forget the call we receive from God. In this culture of encounter, I see three references that have helped me: following Jesus Christ, our Good Mother and Saint Marcellin Champagnat.

Nina: ‘I have volunteered in different places. Sometimes the mission asks for something that we don’t know how to do, but by being with the people and seeing the local need, we understand what they need. The mission is to be there, to see, to perceive. Volunteering is a transformation that we propose to people, when we go back to our spaces it changes the way we see the world.

Nathiele Grosso: ‘Volunteering is a mission experience focused on the culture of encounter. It gives us the opportunity to meet each other. At the moment I live in an international community with people from different parts of the world, we are very different and when we want to talk about something in common we talk about listening and love’.

Esmeralda Caudel: ‘Volunteering is entering into the encounter with the other. In the case of my community, we were in Romania with abandoned children. The fact of being with them was what motivated us. I have always seen volunteering as a strength.

Argie Hernández: ‘Many times as humans we think about what we can do. This call of the spirit invites us to love God and our neighbour through listening and being there. This call is to transform those around us. We speak of transforming solidarity when we are already on a concrete mission. You are also your mission because no one gives what they do not have. You have to discover the God in you.

Hannah Lauererer: ‘During the three months I was in Cambodia, I was involved in the community and helped in the Marist education centre as an English teacher. Volunteering experiences are wonderful because you receive and you give.

Rubén Galego: ‘After various volunteer experiences in different parts of the world Honduras, Zambia, Kenya, South Africa… right now I find myself for a few years in the LaValla200 project together with my wife Silvia’.

Silvia Martínez: ‘Choosing LaValla200 is a way of living our Marist vocation in a different way. We have the opportunity that we are in a global family and therefore we can live volunteering in different ways and in different parts of the world. Currently, Ruben and I volunteer with high school students who are out of school for different reasons and we try to help them in a personal way. The Marist presence is fundamental in allowing us to respond to what the kids need.

Nyasha Bowora: ‘My volunteering started when I saw a group of students in Zimbabwe and I couldn’t stop. I have volunteered in South Africa and Germany and now I am back in South Africa coordinating volunteers. It’s not just about the big things but the little things like a child’s smile.

Renata Hacker: ‘I have been a coordinator at the volunteer office in Germany for 10 years. We started sending young Germans to different parts of the world and years later we started to welcome volunteers from other parts of the world here. I know it’s not easy to come to Germany, it’s hard to find your place in this culture. It’s a real gift to be able to be here and now, that value is one of the most fundamental to the experience.

To conclude, Brother Ángel Diego, director of the Solidarity Secretariat, had a few words of thanks for Champagnat Global, for the participants in the webinar and for all the Marist volunteers who exist: ‘their life, their mission and their free time at the service of the Institute, of the Church and of children and young people, especially the most vulnerable’.

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