Recently, the Rosminian Fathers Congregation in East Africa hosted a skills training workshop in Kenya to build the professional capacity of its teams in the region.
By Michael Hanly, MDO Rosminians
Rosminians Skills Training Workshop, Nairobi, Kenya (Oct. 2024). Misean Cara Mentor for East Africa, Paul Gichuki at far right.
Vocations to religious life are growing in Africa, and this is true also of the Rosminian Congregation in East Africa. Rosminian priests spend about ten years preparing for their ordination, after which many then work in parishes. But still others are appointed to community development roles, health centre directors or school managers, and find that they need new skills for these important roles.
This was the feeling at a recent skills training workshop in Nairobi, Kenya in October, attended by fourteen managers and staff, currently working in Rosminian projects in Kenya and Tanzania.
The workshop, which was facilitated over three days by Michael Hanly, Rosminian MDO (Missionary Development Officer) and Paul Gichuki, Misean Cara Mentor for East Africa, focused on project cycle management skills, budgeting and safeguarding. Participants were keen to learn more, and they also spent time selecting further training opportunities for online courses.
By the end of the workshop, most who participated felt they would like to continue with more training, so they could perform as well as possible as project managers, administrators, etc. By the end, the workshop feedback was positive from the participants:
“Most of us didn’t previously have the knowledge, but now I have an insight into how to go about asking donor agencies for funding”.
“Personally, I learned new skills, such as budgeting, and how it is related to the mission I am doing as a Rosminian”.
“Above all I have started to learn new skills on planning and management.”
One of the highlights of the workshop was a practical project visit to a Rosminian community development project in a Maasai community. This project works on two main issues:
- advocating for the rights of girls to prevent them being forced into early marriage as teenagers- often as young as 13 or 14;
- advocating against FGM (Female Genital Mutilation).
The group heard how these problems are being addressed by an innovative project led by Mama Grace and her team, at the Marie Adelaide Centre (MAC), run by the Rosminians. For more than ten years, the centre (based in Ewuaso, about an hour outside Nairobi) has supported teenage girls who have run away from home because of being forced into a marriage at too young an age, or those fleeing FGM. These are daily cultural practices within Maasai communities in East Africa.
Mama Grace spoke with passion about girls’ rights and she knows the culture well as a proud Maasai woman. She stresses the need for education for all, up to age 18 and beyond, especially for girls in the local area so they can make their own choices about work, marriage, or family.
Thanks to Misean Cara who supported the workshop, through a capacity building grant.
