Live and share YCW values with other youths – Says National Youth Chaplain

By Augustine Sinforiano Mulomole

Young Catholic workers in Malawi have been challenged to live and share their YCW values with fellow youths and entire society. As a Christian movement, YCW members must prioritise spiritual exercises so that they can draw strength from them to work as disciples of change in the society. A vibrant YCW in Malawi will result into a fruitful evangelization by the young people. As such, YCW members have to remain active in all the dioceses and parishes.

The remarks came from Rev. Fr. Vincent Mwakhwawa, who is the National Youth Chaplain for the Catholic Church in Malawi. He spoke in Lilongwe at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the Young Christian Workers (YCW), a Catholic youth movement in Malawi which brings together young people that have finished school and are either working or looking for employment opportunities.

“Youth activities need to be guided with prayer. If the Catholic youth do not care about prayer then they are as good as dead. As YCW, you need to have more spiritual programmes so that young people get to know the importance as well as benefits of prayer. Once YCW members are spiritually enriched, then, they can become effective evangelizers in their homes, work place and among their fellow youths” said Fr. Mwakhwawa. “Moreover, membership of YCW will increase only if active members live and share the values of YCW by their daily life and actions,” He added.

Present at this AGM, which was held on 28th February at Bethany Conference Centre in Lilongwe, were leaders of YCW movement at Diocesan level and Diocesan Youth Chaplains from Karonga, Mzuzu, Lilongwe, Dedza, Zomba and Blantyre Dioceses.

YCW follows the model of See, Judge, Act and Reflect. Young people in the movement are encouraged to See the situation around them in their communities in order to identify issues through their rational Judgement. Once they see and identify such issues, they discuss and debate whether or not such issues are worth taking Action on. After having taken the action, the young people later sit back and Reflect whether or not the action that was taken was rightly done and had any impact worth pointing at.

Speaking at the same event, Rev. Fr. Robert Songo who is the Youth Chaplain for Karonga Diocese, noted that membership in YCW in some dioceses is not growing stagnant, hence the need to brainstorm and find ways of encouraging more youth to join the movement, if the youth ministry were to be vibrant in Malawi. “I have noted with concern that in almost all the reports that have been presented by the diocesan teams at this AGM, a number of problems have been highlighted related to issues of membership and resource mobilisation. YCW needs to do more in terms of encouraging inter-relations with other Catholic youth groups as well as church organisations such as Parish Youth Movements (PAYOMO); Young Christian Students (YCS); Catholic Family Movement (CFM); Marriage Encounter; among other organisations. Such inter-relations will bring positive results for YCW at section, deanery, diocese and even at national level,” he advised.

The AGM aimed to among other things, discuss the status of the YCW movement at parish, deanery, diocese and national level and then chart the way forward on how the Movement could be more vibrant in ensuring that it’s activities are contributing to the evangelisation campaign in Malawi.

Responding to the concerns raised by both the diocesan and national youth chaplains at the AGM, the President for the YCW movement in Malawi, Mike Chibwana guided the AGM to come up with a number of resolutions for implementation for the good of the future of the movement in Malawi.. “We have come up with a number of resolutions at this AGM, one of which is to establish a YCW National Secretariat which will facilitate coordination of the National and Diocesan activities drawn from the National and Diocesan action plans. The other resolutions include: embarking on an annual national tree planting exercise as one way of responding to the cry by mother nature; putting together an updated register of all YCW members in the country in order to boost the movement’s revenue collection through membership fees; collaborating with other Church movements; and ensure that the movement conducts its meetings frequently at national level so as to get updates on the status of the movement in individual dioceses,” he said.

YCW movement was established by a Catholic Priest in Belgium, Rev. Fr. Joseph Cardjin in 1924, who had the passion for the youth and encouraged them to work hard following the effects of the industrial revolution. The youth movement is recognised by the Catholic Church, and has branches across the globe, Malawi being one of them after having been established nationally by Rev. Fr. Sam Saffroy at Mua Parish in Dedza Diocese in 195