Home Page | Development Process | Launch

Dear Marist of Champagnat.

It is with great joy and enthusiasm that we place in your hands this Guide for the Participation of Children & Young People in the Marist Mission. Thanks to a consultation process in which approximately 10,000 Marist children and young people and 400 hundred educators from the five continents took part, we present you with this reference document that seeks to inspire and strengthen our practice of child and youth participation in the different places of Marist mission. The text is directly related to our recent General Chapters as well as the past two Marist International Mission Assemblies. Just as the XXI General Chapter (2009) invited us “to become experts and advocates for the rights of children and young people in a courageous and prophetic way in public forums”, the XXII General Chapter (2017) called for “opening the eyes of our hearts and listening to the cry of children and young people, especially those who are voiceless and homeless”, to experience a new beginning by committing ourselves to “promoting, protecting and defending the rights of children and young people, and empowering them as agents of transformation”.

We also recall the spirit of the first Marist International Mission Assembly in Mendes (2007) which exhorted us to “expand opportunities for Marist children and young people to participate in decision-making, strength-en their leadership” and encourage them to act. Similarly, the second Assembly in Nairobi (2014) declared that “our dream is that Marists of Champagnat will be recognised as PROPHETS for promoting the rights of children and young people and are a public voice for the defence of these rights in the political and social forums in which they are reflected upon, and decisions are taken”.

This document, whose creation was spearheaded by the Institute’s Secretariat of Education and Evangelisation and endorsed by the Marist International Mission Commission, seeks to give a strong impetus to our collective commitment to guarantee, promote, protect, and defend the rights of children and young people1, placing their right to express “their views freely in all matters affecting them, and to have those views given due weight” (Art. 12, Convention on the Rights of the Child) at the heart of our educational and pastoral practice and, therefore, among our most urgent apostolic priorities. It is possible that for some of us the ideas contained in this guide have been considered for several years within the ministries of the Province/District. We want those of us who have experience in the development of listening and participation processes for children and young people in their environment to be able to recognise themselves in this docu-ment and, at the same time, feel energised and stimulated towards a continuous improvement of their efforts. For others, it may be that this is the first contact with an important and complementary aspect of the educational and evangelising service that they generously provide. For those who are just starting this journey, we want to offer an information and training tool which will assist you in taking up this important task of educating and empowering those entrusted to our care.

The richness of our global family is expressed in the diversity of ways in which we carry out our mission in line with the historical, social, and cul-tural realities of the places where we are. We believe that for all of us this guide will be a source of hope and enthusiasm, recognising the blessing we have received from God in educating ourselves together with chil-dren and young people and developing better ways of accompanying them as individuals with rights.

In addition, this publication is the first way of informing those children, young people, and educators who were involved in the consultation pro-cess of the results, indicating how their opinions were taken into consid-eration. In a short time and with the help of them, a more user-friendly version of the guide that will allow its wide dissemination and implemen-tation. It is now up to all of us to initiate and strengthen activities and processes of listening and participation of Marist children and young people as they are empowered to become agents of transformation.

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the children and young people, educators and managers who participated in this process, as well as to Francisco Javier Conde and Zayra Magaña, our consultants, who were responsible for preparing the basic study document and for processing the contributions which helped to move the proposal for-ward. Their contributions were a fundamental part of this text in our hands. God bless we all.
We bid farewell, trusting in Mary’s maternal protection for the fruits of this new effort. May she continue to be the one who does everything for us.

Br. Carlos Alberto Rojas Carvajal
Director of the Secretariat of Education and Evangelization (2017 – 2022)
Br. Mark Okolo Omede
Assistant Director of the Secretariat of Education and Evangelization (2017 – 2022)