Fondacio and the Diocesan Youth Chaplaincy of Cotonou are creating a new digital platform to respond to the many concerns of young people in this time of great deprivation.
For the past few months, the pandemic crisis linked to the Coronavirus has maintained respect for humanity in its mode of transmission. Some African countries, like many others around the world, have had to choose to define sanitary containment zones in order to contain the virus in its spread. However, innovations abound in all sectors. In the midst of new initiatives and possibilities of adaptation, emerges between young people and priests of Benin, a digital exchange platform called » Allô Padre « .
Result of a partnership between the Fondacio movement and several youth groups of the youth chaplaincy, »AllôPadre « remains a great initiative offered to young people by young people, as part of their quest to find answers to concerns affecting their faith and mainly, approaches to solutions to properly manage the crisis linked to the pandemic. In a virtual video chat on Whatsapp and Facebook, this new way of being together appears as a spiritual cordon that goes beyond the sanitary cordons physically erected between cities. Rather than being shot down by the gusts of death in the face of the dangerousness of this virus, these young people have sought the best way to contain the virus through videos and listening, to take care of each other with proposals for adaptation of personal and professional life.
Added to this are other initiatives such as the mobilization, awareness and expression capsules, « Young people talk about their experiences ». Sometimes recorded with the means at hand, laptops, these capsules are distributed like hot cakes on social networks, to rally Christians to the cause of barrier gestures, by spiritual means and above all to support fragile people. That of the month of May, for example, was baptized » month of Hope with Mary » around a chain of prayer to put an end to the pandemic. These initiatives thus create spiritual support in order to fill for a short period the void created by the closure of churches and community gathering places. Even better, handshakes are certainly eliminated, but virtual smiles of shared peace now replace the usual heart-warming gestures. There is no stopping young people who are being forced to change their ways in order to manage the response to Covid-19 and promote collaboration on practical solutions across Africa. « Pick up your rosary and join this prayer chain ». It is an invitation to anyone who wishes to join the prayer movement by contributing a message, a prayer or a testimony posted on these new digital communication channels.
It’s time for all the adaptations. They are going faster than expected.
« We will overcome with the risen! With Mary, it’s possible! This is the watchword that we find on almost everyone’s lips in this period.
Let’s not be afraid!
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