Sudan: Historic Feat As All Dioceses Represented At WYD

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Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)

18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008

Sydney

A group of 44 Sudanese youth from both the south and north are attending the 23rd World Youth Day in Australia.

The youth made the trip thanks to support from the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (CAN). The archbishop of Khartoum, Cardinal Zubeir Wako is with them and shall celebrate mass with the Sudanese community at the end of WYD.

"This will be the first time in the history of our Church that we can organize a real Sudanese Youth Delegation whereby all the dioceses are represented." said a delighted Fr. Celestino Prevedello, Mccj, the WYD 2008 coordinator in Sudan.

He added that getting a delegation from the south and north of the country was a constructive development as a result of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in January 2005) and it would send an encouraging message to their faithful and to the country at large.

Father Prevedello noted that an important experience for the youth delegation travelling from Sudan would be the coming together with other young Sudanese, whose families fled the war-torn country during the decades of civil war from 1983-2005 and have since made a new home for themselves in Australia.

"Such encounters will no doubt provide many powerful moments of unity as the two groups come together as one at WYD. Despite the past horrific experiences that many of our Sudanese brothers and sisters in Christ had to undergo, the meeting of the two groups in Sydney will help them overcome the separation from their homeland," Said Phillip Collignon, the Australian Director of ACN.

In 2005, during the WYD in Cologne, ACN helped a delegation of Sudanese youth travel to the event. The group were also welcomed at ACN headquarters near Frankfurt and accommodated by families in a nearby parish.

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