When you hear about the term, ‘Safeguarding’, what comes into your mind and what feelings have you? The feelings of fear, care trust, responsibility. All these remind us that it is our collective responsibility to ensure that we prevent and minimize the potential for abuse from occurring. We are called to create a culture of safeguarding in our homes, Church, parishes, learning institutions and Society to ensure that children and vulnerable adults have a safer environment to thrive in and that any concerns that may raise from the communities we serve are reported to the appropriate authorities.
On Monday, the 27th day of July the second batch consisting of the 44 Young Mill Hill Missionaries from different parts of the world spent the good hours of the day reflecting on the topic of safeguarding. The topic was facilitated by Sr. Jacinta Ondeng, SSND and it was a moment of renewal and creating more awareness on our role in Safeguarding as pastoral agents. A part from looking at the specific concerns common among the young members in the field of safeguarding, we tried to identify some of the risky factors that may contribute to boundary violation. Factors such as loneliness, misuse of authority, stress, burn-out may make us to cross the line and therefore it is good when such factors are addressed. We shared and discussed the way forward towards creating an abuse-free environment in our Society and especially our pastoral areas.
All the members were in agreement that indeed some actions and measures have been taken and something is being done in various mission areas, schools and parishes to ensure that not only us but also those we work with and serve have the knowledge of safeguarding. The major question of concern or challenge that was observed was how do we contextualize what we have in writing and in the protocols to fit our various pastoral needs. It is not enough to have the guidelines written but what is more important is to live what we have committed ourselves too in our guidelines. Most of our members serve in very remote areas where there is no awareness and people have no knowledge of what it means to safeguard. Moreover, in some areas there is conflict between some deep-rooted cultural practices and our call to safeguard. For example, the FGM, under-age marriages among other harmful cultural practices.
We also affirmed the steps that the Church has taken is ensuring a safe environment and ensuring that there is accountability in our actions. Quoting from the Apostolic Letter of Pope Francis, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, “we are all called to a continuous and profound conversion of hearts, attested by concrete and effective actions that involve everyone in the church so that sanctity and moral commitment can contribute to promoting the full credibility of the Gospel message and the effectiveness of Church’s mission.”
In deed we all have a role to play in safeguarding and I would like to end with the following words… “Lord you call us to walk with integrity in the service of others, may we all strive to understand our collective responsibility to work together to safeguard our brothers and sisters.”
Clement Kitoli, MHM
