After several weeks of getting acquainted, the new Provincial Team of VedrunAmerica has reflected on the priorities for the next three years. Promoting the laity, strengthening the accompaniment of young people, implementing the viability plan or promoting a vocational culture in the communities are some of the challenges identified by Marisol Sanchez (left), Alicia Zanichelli (the provincial, center) and Marita Garcés Sócola.
In light of the proposals that emerged from the Chapter, what specific aspects of your province do you think could be left behind to make room for new initiatives and renewal?
As VedrunAmerica communities we want to let go ofthe mental barriers that lead us to close ourselves to change by repeating schemes, old structures, resistance and negative criticism of new initiatives. Letting go of attitudes that prevent us from valuing our gifts, relearning fraternal love, nurturing hope and strengthening our faith.
Faced with the most challenging realities that exist in your Province, what strategies have you considered as a new Provincial Team to face them and sow life as a Vedruna Family?
The challenges that we gather from the chapter and from the reality of our province are:
- Faced with the minority of the continent, we want to assume it as a possibility to recreate the mission, strengthening the appreciative leadership in a special way in the younger generations.
- Given the perception of looking at ourselves as a country unit, generate networks among us that strengthen the bonds as a charismatic family, allow us to live our vocation with joy and consolidate us as VedrunAmerica Family.
- Faced with the challenge of how to enter into the reality of young people and how to accompany them, we propose to continue with our preferential option for young people, approaching their reality with a new look. To achieve the involvement of lay people in the team, in order to dynamize this aspect in the province; moving towards integration between youth mission, educational pastoral and other youth platforms, favoring integration and support between countries.
- Given the diverse economic reality of the countries that make up our province, the reduced number of sisters prepared for this mission, strengthen the administrative management teams with sisters and lay people, reaching the communion of goods as a province.
What are the main goals and objectives that the Provincial Team intends to achieve during this new period, in response to the needs and challenges identified in the Chapter and the provincial reality?
Together we are building the continent and for this we are looking for:
Consolidate ourselves as a VedrunAmerica Province:
- Continuing and redesigning the Continent’s mission teams
- Encourage co-responsibility through shared leadership and participation.
The experience of vocational culture in the communities:
- Care for personal vocation and show the joy of following Jesus.
- Rediscover and promote synodal and prophetic dynamics.
- To live in an attitude of discernment in order to glimpse where the new forms of mission are going in today’s contexts.
- Encourage or try out new styles of presence.
- Prioritize walking with young people.
Implement the Continent’s viability plan:
- Setting up the economic and administrative management team
- To advance in the configuration of a continental team of educational centers.
- Promote the concept of sustainability in all communities so that we can understand it, live it and translate it into new actions.
In the current context of the deterioration of the Common Home, how do you as a Province plan to address environmental challenges and what specific actions could you take to contribute to sustainability?
- “Laudato Si” reminds us that care for the environment and care for the poor are inseparable. For this reason we want to continue our presence with native communities or indigenous peoples, as well as join international organizations that work with causes related to the care of mother earth.
- To continue promoting the Global Educational Pact in our educational institutions from the Vedruna Educational Proposal, socializing experiences and projects through virtual platforms where children and young people are the protagonists.
- To continue our presence in UNANIMA by also making alliances with institutions or networks that work in favor of the care of the planet and the valorization of the individual.
How do you plan to facilitate open and constructive dialogue among the different communities and members of the Vedruna Family in your Province, so as to promote a synodal culture?
- Promoting in our communities from the methods: “From the appreciative look” and “the conversation in the spirit” the reflective dialogue from the closeness and active listening.
- Creating spaces for joint research as a family, in all its links at the community, national and provincial levels to discern what is emerging and give way to what is new at this moment in history.
