POSI: “Children’s rights at the heart of it all” – the theme of the newly published newsletter

Rolling up our sleeves, taking action and putting children’s rights at the centre. This is the essence of the passionate editorial penned by the Secretary General of the Pontifical Society for Holy Childhood (POSI), Sister Inês Paulo Albino, at the start of the newsletter published in June. “The presence of children, wherever they may be, should prompt us to change our perspective and  invest all our resources in them, rolling up our sleeves to build a better future together,” writes Sister Inês Paulo Albino, who entrusts children with the mission of teaching adults to be more humane.

This latest issue of the newsletter is, as always, the result of painstaking work in gathering and selecting news from the National Directorates of the Pontifical Mission Societies (POM) and from the dioceses. In the ‘Children’s Voices’ section, this issue focuses on the National Directorates of the POM in Mali, Ecuador and the Czech Republic. In Mali, POSI brings together children aged 7 to 14 who are part of the Catholic movement ‘Gli amici di Kizito’ (Kizito’s Friends), which is open to all children regardless of ethnicity or religion. The activities of this movement are guided by the slogan ‘Hand in hand for a better world’. The country’s socio-political situation affects the normal running of these activities but, despite this, Holy Childhood Day was celebrated in all the dioceses of Mali. Do read the testimonies of some children from the Sacred Heart parish in Bamako, which organised a Christmas initiative aimed at drawing inspiration from traditional African tales to convey Gospel values to the children. In Ecuador, too, there is a flurry of activity among children’s groups and missionary outreach initiatives, carried out in many communities and promoted at diocesan, archdiocesan and vicariate levels, as reported by the national director. Of particular interest is the testimony of twelve-year-old Walter Zambrano and his mother, who recount in unison Walter’s journey with POSI and how this experience has changed him for the better.  ‘Little missionary clubs’, on the other hand, is the name given to the groups bringing together children who take part in POSI activities in the Czech Republic, where the Day dedicated to the Holy Childhood takes place on 1 June, coinciding with World Children’s Day. Among the most significant activities are the missionary resources for spending the summer holidays at the parish youth club, the comic-strip calendars, and, among the materials for special missionary activities, those linked to the Jubilee Year, during which the catechetical programme for children, ‘Missionary Pilgrim of Hope’, was launched.  This programme will run until next October and includes, amongst other things, thirteen monthly themes and a series of games, quizzes, creative tasks and worksheets. As for the section on testimonies gathered by the dioceses in this issue, it begins in Nsukka, Nigeria, where widespread poverty makes the educational situation challenging – which is why the diocese awards scholarships to 50 children from POSI – and continues t , in the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia, where POSI was established on 28 March 2025. Missio Avona, meanwhile, which operates in the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia, celebrated Missionary Childhood Day this year from 2 to 4 January and is carrying out a project for children prompted by the conflict in the Middle East, as Father Marcus Fernandes, Missio Avona’s delegate, explains in his article. We move on to the Diocese of Nouakchott in Mauritania, where the main challenge, in a predominantly Muslim country, is interfaith dialogue and the promotion of brotherhood. Here, the nuns run centres for children providing nutritional education, as well as care and rehabilitation for children with physical and intellectual disabilities. From Thailand comes the testimony of the Bishop of Chiang Rai and, in particular, the story of the Home Charity Centre, which supports children with disabilities who have no access to healthcare or education, run by the Camillians; whilst from the Diocese of Butare in Rwanda comes the account of Father Vlastmil Chovanec, RCJ, who describes the foundation and mission of the Saint Antoine Centre in Nyanza, coordinated by the Rogationist Fathers, which supports orphaned children aged between 4 and 20. From the Vietnamese Diocese of Long Xuyen comes an account of a community where the priority is to provide educational opportunities for children, whilst from the Archdiocese of Boston, the coordinator of missionary education for the POM outlines the numerous activities offered to children and young people in the Missionary Childhood Association (MCA). From Bangladesh, Father Mankin also describes the situation at the Parish of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in Baluchora and how child labour is a real scourge there, whilst from Ukraine comes the testimony of the Blessed Tarsikia Matskiv Community for Girls, which cares for teenage girls from large, poor families. From the Diocese of Paramaribo in the Republic of Suriname comes the wonderful experience of the summer camps organised by the Servants of the Lord and of the Virgin Mary, which offer a valuable opportunity to young people exposed to violence and situations of economic and social hardship. Finally, we turn to the Archdiocese of Kananga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is suffering the repercussions of war; here, the Church is working tirelessly on behalf of children, vulnerable people and the elderly. A beacon of hope is the TANTAMANA School, which is also supported by POSI.