Bogotá (Colombia) During the Covid-19 emergency, the pastoral and educational works of the Province of Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirà (CBC) were reorganized to continue responding to the needs of children and young people, valuing communication resources.
Various means of communication were used to raise funds to help families in need and to ensure the accompaniment and formation of the Groups of the Salesian Family present in the various realities.
The CBC Province has made available its own YouTube Channel to continue to spread the Word of God, giving voice and space to the FMA who with dedication prepare a Sunday reflection to reach many people who, because of this pandemic, have no spiritual reference. In this way, the presence of the FMA is ensured to help people feel that God is walking with them.
Virtual formation materials have been created, including the ‘Good Morning’ in which members of the Salesian Family and the Educating Communities can participate, bringing their own ‘little word in the ear’. The videos are posted on social channels, in order to make visible the good that is being done and to make ourselves known as the Salesian Family.
Technology has also helped to promote and carry out vocational encounters with the participation of young people from all over Colombia and other countries. In these meetings, guidelines are provided for vocational discernment, followed by accompaniment through personal online meetings. Also, through virtual platforms, online meetings were held for the formation of Teachers and Educators of the Schools and of the various animation areas of the Province, both in groups and individually.
As FMA Communities, online gatherings were held to celebrate dates and events, promoting creativity and fraternity. The formation of the Animators and the Temporary Professed also continued with meetings carried out through these means. Technologies have come to the aid to encourage some community and province moments that, due to the lockdown and the impossibility of physically meeting, could not have been lived together. Furthermore, the FMA have learned to return to the essential.
We continue to dream and renew ourselves, even in the use of technologies to bring life to the mission in the ‘here and now’ of the context of the pandemic, helping to make the environments more synodal and educational.
