ICMICA and its Joint Strengthening Activities

How to strengthen the international dimension of the ICMICA or how to live the internationality of the MIIC through joint actions or activities with other movements?

To ask ourselves such a question is actually questioning our identity: who we are; what we want to build; with whom ; what it means to us to be an international movement and how to translate it into activities.

I suppose that we already have the answers to these questions; that is why I will not come back to this.

In reality, belonging to a movement like ICMICA has several advantages in my opinion:

The first is the possibility of opening up or exposing oneself, on the one hand, to situations experienced by members of ICMICA in other countries; other continents. These situations are those of poverty; human rights; social justice; the environment and its impact on the daily lives of populations; job insecurity; of citizenship and on the other hand; to share with these members of ICMICA our own realities . All this can question us about our methods and our ways of doing things by enriching them through contact with others.

Our commitment to strengthening common actions or activities at the international level therefore appears as an additional opportunity to respond to Christ’s call to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Sometimes we experience fear or reluctance to initiate relevant activities or actions in our living environments, especially actions that affect human rights. By acting with others within the framework of a movement like the ICMICA, we can overcome this fear and give more scope to our approach.

Concretely as a local movement we can:

  • Participate in or initiate joint campaigns on respect for human rights; on the questions of the preservation of the environment of the fight against poverty and social injustices in connection with other movements……..
  • Participate in joint training on international realities and challenges
  • Strengthening joint activities also means showing solidarity with the life of regional and international teams by giving them the means of action, in particular by paying annual dues.
  • It also means providing regional and international teams with competent, dynamic members who are motivated to conduct the activities of the movement and above all to support them financially.

As we can see, the field of common actions at the international level is very vast. It remains for each and every one of us to let ourselves be challenged by the Spirit of Pentecost in order to respond to this international challenge and to live it in solidarity with others.

Lazare Animaco from Ivory Coast, former International Secretary General of IYCS and current Trustee of ICMICA Africa