Letter of Presentation of the Workshop on Interculturality

General Secretariat of Formation

LETTER OF PRESENTATION OF THE WORKSHOP
ON INTERCULTURALITY

To the Attention of:
The Superiors of the Circumscriptions
The Secretaries of formation in the Circumscriptions

Dear confreres,
Multiculturalism is a grace that is part of the "charismatic heritage" of our Institute since its foundation (RL 18; CA 2015, 47.1)

We are all invited to abandon complexes and prejudices, the suspicion and the fear of the difference that the other person embodies. Instead, we are called to open ourselves to mutual trust, to the knowledge of the culture of the other, to respect and to the value of differences. The awareness and sharing of our wealth and the relativization of cultural, religious and methodological visions will help us to face the inevitable tensions. (CA 2015, 47.4)

The certainty of our common vocation and the charism itself are a source of interpersonal communion that allows us to challenge the disruptive forces that can arise from differences. This becomes a prophecy of our mission to build a new humanity. (CA 2015, 47.5).

Interculturality is a phenomenon of great relevance for our Institute, as emphasized by the General Chapter (Cf. CA 2015, 47.6), as well as for the increasingly multi-ethnic religious communities and for our increasingly globalized world. Interculturality is the theme chosen by our Institute, at the request of the last General Chapter, to which attention must be paid in a journey of conversion and concrete commitment for the year 2019.

The goal is to activate in us a process that allows us to develop intercultural competence, that is to acquire greater knowledge, awareness and understanding in view of greater ability, to interact in the day to day experience of our community life and in our ministry in a way appropriate and effective with people from different cultures.

As an aid to the Circumscriptions, the General Council has organized a workshop on this theme in Rome, scheduled from January 20^th to 27^th 2019, in which all the Circumscriptions are invited to send a confrere, preferably the person responsible for ongoing formation, who will then be an animator / multiplier of the workshop in his own Circumscription. Here in Rome the members of the General Secretariat of Formation will, together with the representatives of the Circumscriptions, animate this workshop, following the methodology used during the experience of the Ratio Missionis. To make everyone's participation more active and engaging, we shall be able to use various languages.

The basis of this workshop will be a handout, translated into five languages, which uses a resource material prepared by Sr. Martha Seide, a Salesian from Haiti and an expert in this field. Using the workshop mode, we will follow the following steps for each topic on which we will reflect:

1. A brief presentation of each theme using as a basis a chapter of the handout.
2. A time for reflection and personal prayer will follow, oriented by the questions that conclude each chapter and the personal elaboration of the proposed exercises.
3. Sharing in groups.
4. Plenary.

Each sharing should lead to a concrete commitment: an attitude to be taken or an initiative to be implemented. The workshop ends with the elaboration of a common commitment to grow in intercultural competence. The fundamental attitude required is to get personally involved.

The effectiveness of this activity is measured in the daily resonance of our relations with confreres and people of other cultures that we meet in our ministry. The aim is to assume attitudes in our everyday life oriented by a greater awareness of the challenges and values that we encounter in living in a multicultural context. This implies a journey of conversion in our relationships in the light of the Gospel and of the Comboni charism.

The workshop we will have together will enrich the material we will use with experiences that will be shared and questions that are better focused and related to the reality of our Circumscriptions. The participants in this workshop will have the responsibility to adapt the material we will use, adjusting it to the reality of their own Circumscriptions and to organize and animate this workshop in the relevant Circumscriptions, in the modality that the respective Provincial superiors and their councils will decide.

We entrust this initiative and all those that will follow to the intercession of St. Daniel Comboni, knowing that our Founder wanted his Institute not to be tied to a specific nation and culture, but open to welcoming people of every nation and culture. We are also aware that our communities live the challenge of interculturality in this change of vocational and generational geography.

Regarding the economic aspect of this workshop, we ask you to take charge of the trip to Rome and back; the GSF will cover the living expenses and the materials. We invite you to let us know the names of the confreres you have chosen by December 15^th 2018.

If the confrere needs a visa to come to Italy, let us know, and please notify especially Fr. Umberto Pescantini, the Secretary General of the Institute, by immediately sending him the biometric page of the passport, in order to have all the documents required for the visa at the Embassy.
General Secretariat of Formation
Rome, November 13^th 2018