Echoes from the Madrid Antenna (Spain)

The cheerful rhythm of the tam tam, the kikeleke and joyful songs... announce a great event. The celebration of AEFJN's 25 years. Therefore all the parts of the Network: the Executive, the General Secretariat and the national Antennae dress up!

 

It's time to stop, acknowledge the road travelled and thank for it. And then well energized to seek new ways forward in our work and commitment.

 

Africa and Europe are celebrating the sharing of life generated through relationships, work in common, shared desires and interests, mutual challenges and hopes... as we let strongly resonate in us the words of the Gospel "Rejoice!" (Lk 1: 26).

In our Antenna we have spent time thinking what to organize and do to raise awareness of the network and its work and to help our society to discover Africa, so that its voice is heard. We have chosen three events:

• A Roundtable where we invited Begoña Iñarra to speak to us about the Network and its work. Two other persons will also participate; an African and a Spaniard. Both will help us to look towards Africa in order to discover its challenges and hopes.
  In the second part of the morning we opted for the presence of three Africans: a Ugandan, a Congolese (from D.R. Congo) and a Mozambican. Each one will share his/her experience in one of the issues that our antenna works at: arms sales, food sovereignty and access to quality medicines. We would like them to tell us the road we should take from here on.

 

• A series of Film fora. We will pass four films from Africa and Europe. Each one pretends to bring us a little closer to Africa, with its dreams, its complex reality, its values ​​and its crossroads.

 

• The closing day celebration where we want not only celebrate but also pray and reflect together on how our faith relates to justice. As JI Calleja says "Without the most elementary justice towards the world's poorest, there is no Christian way to God".

 

• An article on AEFJN has just been published in a religious magazine.  Soon a new booklet on access to quality medicines will be published by the South Foundation (Fundación Sur).

 

We recognize our Madrid Antenna as being only a small knot in the larger AEFJN Network, but it brings a difference, a plurality, and it is full of vitality and potential. We continue expanding our tent, from the certainty that comes from our experience and that is expressed in the Bantu proverb "we're only human, through the humanity of others."

 

Itziar Alfaro

Coordinator AEFJN Madrid Antenna