2937 EAO as model for Africa-Madagascar
austraLasia #2937
EAO as a model?
ROME: 2 November 2011 -- Every one of the eight
Salesian regions is different, and each has something to
offer. Not every initiative of one is easily
replicable in the other, but this should not prevent one
region from considering what the other does and seeing what
might be applicable.
Recent involvement in the CIVAM meeting
(the provincial conference for all of Africa and Madagascar)
revealed that they have looked at, or have already borrowed,
or are looking at some of the arrangements that pertain to
our EAO Region as they continue to develop their own
structures.
A case in point is the mobile formation
team. Africa of course has a different set of
problems; it might be one continent but it has three common
languages for Salesian purposes (except that Madagascar
might have more in common with Fiji than Africa! Malagasy is
a language which belongs to the same language family as
Fijian and is not an African language). Salesian Africa uses
English, French and Portuguese, so any team or structure has
to be able to handle at least those three. Nevertheless,
CIVAM has set up what they call CONFORT, which is close
enough to English to suggest a certain 'ease' and the French
are happy too! This is a mobile ongoing formation team
for Africa-Madagascar.
But that Region's latest decision is also
interesting - they want to do something for communication
across the region, and have set up a loose structure for
now, involving three people: a coordinator (who speaks both
French and English, as well as other local languages) a
vice-coordinator (who speaks English natively, then good
Portuguese and French as well), and a Provincial from the
Conference who speaks French and Spanish and can make do in
English if he has to, but the Spanish, which he speaks
natively, at least makes it possible to follow
Portuguese. Now the group is looking at what model
they might follow to develop Salesian communications across
the whole region - and austraLasia
is one of the possible models they are looking at. In
other words, a regional structure is not so much about
meetings and other possibly heavy structures, but about a
very light structure that connects people, something that austraLasia has grown to
achieve, without a great deal of fuss, though obviously with
consistent effort, over a 15 year period.
What way the Africa-Madagascar region
will eventually go with all this is still in the future, and
they do need to develop an approach that allows for the
three languages interchangeably, no mean challenge, but it
will certainly be of interest to note that a relatively
recent region such as EAO is already able to offer something
to other regions. And of course, the other matter this
poses comes our way: what can we learn from
Africa-Madagascar? Plenty, quite probably. The
exchange of missionaries between the two regions is under
way and it is but one channel which might help us learn from
each other.
