CSAN Leadership Conference - Rome
Reflection written by Kate Wilkinson, CEO of Million Minutes
In the final week of May, I had the privilege of joining colleagues from across the Catholic social action network in Rome for the CSAN Leadership Conference. Bringing together leaders from charities, diocesan Caritas agencies and Catholic organisations from across England and Wales, it was a chance to step away from the day-to-day of our work and discern together about how we, as a collective, can build more compassionate communities.
For me, one of the greatest strengths of Million Minutes has always been our willingness to work collaboratively. Spending time with others who share a commitment to Catholic Social Teaching, justice and human dignity was both encouraging and energising. And in many of our discussions and times of discernment it was great to be able to bring in the voices and experiences of young people.
The conference invited us into four working groups: one on young people, one on the dignity of work, flourishing communities and the challenges facing our organisations.
Unsurprisingly, I found myself in the conversations around young people. We discussed the importance of l listening to young people but also and importantly moving beyond listening towards genuinely sharing power and responsibility with them. It reinforces something we strive to do every day at Million Minutes, to ensure young people are not just beneficiaries of our work but active partners in shaping it. This workstream greatly affirmed the work that we do and I was delighted to be able to share our work to help develop youth engagement across the network.
Alongside the workshops, we heard from inspiring speakers from across the global Caritas family and the wider Church. Each talk left me inspired with new ideas and dreams for the future of Million Minutes and many reinforced the need for our work and the way in which we work. It was great to hear, for example, from Rebecca Rathbone who is responsible for youth at Caritas International. To hear that internationally they are championing youth participation at trustee board level and beyond was great to hear and their call encouragement to each organisation to include young people and their experience was really encouraging.
A highlight was also attending the Papal audience and being able to visit the dicastery for integral human development as well as Caritas International. To hear from Pope Leo, and to meet with leaders in the dicastery and caritas international was a wonderful reminder of our connection with an international community who are also committed to the work we do.
I headed home after a truly wonderful conference feeling extremely grateful to be part of such a vibrant network of people committed to the common good. The conversations has during the week have already sparked new ideas and partnerships that I hope will benefit Million Minutes and, most importantly, the young people we exist to serve.
A huge thank you to the CSAN team for all their work in organising such an important and life-giving conference. I would also like to thank my colleagues who attended for their generosity in sharing and commitment to collaboration working for the good of all our communities.
The Archdiocese of Liverpool Social Action Conference
Reflection written by William Reay, Agents of Change young leader and participant in the Social Action Conference
The Liverpool Social Action conference is an annual event in the Archdiocese of Liverpool, bringing together people in faith-based charities, volunteers, and anyone with a particular interest in social justice advocacy and Catholic social teaching. The theme for this year was ‘Humanitas: Flourishing in Action’.
A small group of us met at the cathedral at 8:30 am in the morning, about 1 hour before the conference started we set up our workshop so we were prepared and could focus on the talks. It then got to 9:30 am, we all sat down in our seats and were welcomed by Lucy Raurer, part of the Social Action Team and Archbishop of Liverpool John Sherrington.
The first talk was on ‘The Church of Living Stones’ by Fr Maximillian Martin, who is a Franciscan friar serving as the provincial custos for the Order of Friars Minor Conventual and resides with the Greyfriars in Liverpool. I found the talk really interesting as I was able to learn much more about Saint Francis of Assisi and his life of poverty. The next talk was about ‘From Service to Communion: Exploring Humanitas for Our Time’ by Jenny Sinclair, the founder and director of Together for the Common Good (T4CG) The audience responded well to this, when speaking to people around me about what we heard somebody commented on how they are going to use those messages in their everyday life, everyone engaged well.
After the talks, there were 3 workshops and the first one was called ‘Everyday Human Kindness – Simple Actions for Racial Justice and Community Success’ by Justin Malewezi The founder of The Racial Justice House and a member of the Catholic Association for Racial Justice (CARJ). The next workshop was ‘Why Laudato Si Still Matters – Integral Ecology and Human’ by John Paul de Quay who is the co-founder of the Ecological Conversion Group Charity and The Journey to 2030 Project. The final workshop, which I helped lead was by the Agents of Change Young Leaders, with Million Minutes.
Our workshop was called ‘In Our Words’ During the workshop, wepened with a prayer, by Sotaar and short speeches Firstly by Dylan on ‘Where I see my Faith Misunderstood’ and secondly by Emily on ‘How my Faith Leads me to Love, Serve and Act’ bWe then split into three breakout groups, to discuss what had been heard and then shared our thoughts with the rest of the room. Finally, we finished the workshop with a prayer, lead by myself, thanking all those who had attended the workshops, the Million Minutes team and blessing all the young people who want to have their voices heard.
Following the workshops , we then returned to our chairs where Dcn. John Sargent led a 20-minutes of conversations in the spirit I really enjoyed this as it was a very peaceful way to reflect and consider everything that we had heard. We then had some lunch before heading into the final talk which was called ‘Manifesto for Hope & Our Communities: A Renewed Vision of Human Society’ by Revd. James Green who is the CEO of Together Liverpool, a charity supporting churches and communities to develop practical responses to poverty, exclusion and social need. I really enjoyed reading parts of the manifesto and discussing our own communities and the problems they face.
Next, we had a panel discussion with five panel members, chairing the session was Cllr Jane Corbett, who is the counselor for Everton West Ward. The five panel members were, Professor Iain Buchan who is a professor at The University of Liverpool, Tiffany St James who is the Chief AI officer at the Liverpool City Region, Francis Stewart who is part of the Centre for Catholic Social Thought & Practice (CCSTP), Cllr Portia Fahey who is also a counselor for Everton North Ward, and Jenny Sinclair, Founder and Director of T4CG and the co-host of the Leaving Egypt podcastand Revd. Phil Jump Regional Minister and Team Leader of the North Western Baptist Association and chair of Churches Together in the Merseyside Region (CTMR) Overall, I found the panel very inspiring and noticed that everyone involved interacted with interesting and thoughtful questions.
Finally, Dcn. John Sargent ended the event with a final reflection on the day as a whole and Lucy Raurer thanked us for coming, initiating a round of applause for those who contributed and attended the event.
Listening to young people – taking time for real change
Three schools in Durham – St Leonard’s, St Godrics and St Thomas Moore, part of Durham Martyrs Parish – spent time this Advent delving deeper and exploring their views on the Church, their parish and being young people.
The ‘listening survey’ they used was created by Million Minutes in response to Pope Francis’s letter Christus Vivit, to challenge parishes to create opportunities to engage with young people in their local community in new ways. The survey is an opportunity to listen to the realities and challenges young people face, to learn from one another and to work together to make lasting change in local communities.
Tom from Year 7 said "I feel part of my parish community when I go to school Masses and when the priest visits my school. My message to the parish would be, ‘try to connect with the youth because they are the future of the world’”.
A Year 8 pupil said “I live in a small community with no local church, so it can be hard to get too. I think churches and parishes aim activities and services at older people who have more time.” Another comment that came back was it should be the young who should be in charge of the homilies at Mass!
Million Minutes’ hope is that parish communities will take up Pope Francis` challenge to go out to the peripheries - to be brave and to journey together. And the Million Minutes’ team is here to help, with resources and support to help discern how best to serve young people.
If you are interested in understanding your young people in 2020, pledge your time to making real change here: https://millionminutes.org/understandingyoungpeople
YOUNG PEOPLE GATHER TO TRANSFORM THE WORLD
Over National Youth Sunday weekend nominees from previous ‘Celebrating Young People Awards’ gathered for a young adults alumni gathering in Central London, for a weekend of celebration, formation and networking. The event was powered by Million Minutes in partnership with the Columbans UK.
The event brought together young people aged 17-25 years, celebrating their achievements and commitment to social action. The young nominees included eco-champions, volunteer youth workers, a youth safety ambassador among others.Hands on activities, periods of reflection and time to plan projects aimed to inspire them in their on-going activities to transform society. Catholic social teaching principles - including promoting peace, building community and caring for creation – were at the heart of the weekend. These values came to life in two immersive experiences provided by Jesuit Refugee Service and Pax Christi UK. The young people experienced peace making in the past, present and future with visits to the Edith Cavell Memorial and St Martin-in-the-Fields in Central London, in addition to partaking in a workshop that focused on building awareness of detention in this current climate.
Million Minutes’ co-founder, Danny Curtin, said: “We’ve celebrated 1,000 young people since launching the Celebrating Young People Awards and each and every one of them are inspiring. This weekend we’ve been heartened to see that young people continue to be committed to finding ways to put the values of our Catholic social teaching into practice, seeking a more just, peaceful and equal world.”
The weekend came to a close with Mass at Our Lady of Victories.
You can read up about all our nominees from the past four years here: https://millionminutes.org/awards
Pictures from the weekend can be found at: https://millionminutes.org/makeachange