Communication office

The president of the Association of Consecrated Women in Eastern and Central Africa (ACWECA) Sr. Rosalia Sakayombo has challenged Catholic Sisters in the region to reflect on their formation because it is faced by various challenges.

Sr Sakayombo said it is important for the association to reflect on the type of formation that is given to young women and as the association responds to the vocation for the mission.

Sr. Sakayombo said this on Monday in her opening remarks for the association’s 19th plenary assembly and golden jubilee in Lilongwe, Malawi.

“The theme calls us to reflect on the importance of transformative formation, to our religious life in a world faced with so many changes and challenges that are impacting negatively on our religious vocations,” Sr. Sakayombo said.

According to Sr. Sakayombo, some of the challenges include breakdown of family life, social media, poverty, hopelessness, cases of abuse, gender Identity crisis, mental health due to unresolved trauma, fast pace of life that does not allow stopping to reflect technology with its huge amounts of information and and the inability of most users to sift through it.

The theme for the plenary assembly and jubilee is: Transformative holistic formation for authentic living towards deeper evangelization in the ACWECA region and beyond.”

The conference started with holy mass celebrated by Archbishop George Tambala of Lilongwe Archdiocese.

The Pope’s Nuncio to Malawi and Zambia Archbishop Gianluca Perici opened the conference.

He conveyed best wishes from Pope Francis.

ACWECA has members from 10 countries which include Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia.

It was established in 1974.