ARGENTINA-
The Regional Ecumenic Center of Consultancy and Service (CREAS) has launched Ikuméni, the Laboratory of Good Ecumenic and Interreligious Practices. A proposal of training young people of religious communities and faith-based organizations. The first edition will take place in Colombia and Peru. More than 60 participants will transit an formative itinerary to be able to design and implement good ecumenic and interreligious practices linked with sustainable development. The inscriptions opened on July 19th, and any young person from Colombia and Peru can postulate themselves following an online form.
For a hospitable and fraternal world
Before the context of a world that’s ever more divided and polarized and hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic and ecological injustice, religious intolerance, racism, among other wounds, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) made a joint call for reflection, action, and unity of all christians through the document “Serving a Wounded World in Interreligious Solidarity”, published on August 2020.
As a solution, “Serving a Wounded World” invites us to strengthen and increase ecumenical and interreligious cooperation and makes a special call to all christians to practice ecumenical and interreligious solidarity as a way to put into practice Jesus Christ’s commandment of loving the other, to be testimonial of union and not segmentation. The document gives 7 recommendations to take along this peace project. One of them is to promote and compromise young people on their formation and leadership, “whose idealism and energy can be an antidote to the temptation of cynicism, in the endeavour to heal the wounded world of which we are part.”
Ikumeni, an ecumenical and interreligious experience
Against the imperative necessity of different christian churches and organizations to educate new leaders, and in communion with the Episcopal Conference of Latin America’s (ECLA) synodal process, in response to the initiative of communion Pope Francis has generated by summoning the Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean, Ikumeni arises as a space in which the Latin American youth can cooperate together towards the promotion of peace, hospitality, and fraternity from its own religious identity.
This experience of formation seeks to develop community leadership abilities in young people committed to the reality of thejr communities. The proposal of value from Ikumeni is clear: every young person who finishes the educational itinerary will be capable to implement a good ecumenical and interreligious practice in their community, with concrete projects and initiatives.
The invitation to take part of the first edition, which will start at the end of August and finishes in December 2021, will be open to youths from 18 to 35 years from Colombia and Peru. The participants will be protagonists of an experience of brotherhood based on knowing the other, the encounter, and hospitality.
A CREAS project
The institution that takes Ikumeni forward, the Centro Regional Ecuménico de Asesoría y Servicio’s (CREAS) Laboratory of Good Ecumenical and Interreligious Practices, from the area of Religion and Development, coordinated by the Dr. Elena López Ruf. CREAS has been working in Latin America for more than 20 years with the goal of contributing to cooperation, construction, and strengthening of the skills of ecumenical organizations in Latin America. Its mission is to promote human dignity, justice, the care for our Common Home, and respect of diversity.
Translation: Massimiliano Tron F