Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Madrid (Fides Service) - Every year more young people in Spain decide to spend their holidays in activities of solidarity and mission. Various initiatives are organised all over the country; here we mention a few involving adolescents, university students and children of the Holy Childhood mission society.
“Wagering on youth open to the world ” was the title of a “Missionary Youth Camp 2004” in Santa Cruz, La Coruña, which ends on 31 July, the 35th edition of this national event. The young participants were from various parts of Spain and also from Belgium, France, Germany, Canada and as far away as Mexico. The purpose of the camp is to increase missionary awareness among the young people and especially the universal mission. The young people are most interested in missionary testimony from missionaries who share concrete mission experiences. Rev. Gabriel Vecino Tomás, Delegate for Missions of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Coruña, who directs the camp, told Fides about this year’s event which is the 35th edition. He said that on 25 July about 2,500 young people who had taken part in these Summer Mission Camps in the past joined them and now many of them are professionals involved in missionary activity.
In Camarena della Sierra, in the Spanish province of Teruel some 100 children took part in a Holy Childhood Camp organised by the Pontifical Mission Societies office in Valencia in collaboration with the youth section of PMS in La Coruña, 1 to 15 July
About 57 Spanish university students are on summer missions in Santo Domingo, Honduras, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea and Benin, where they will help with programmes in education, healthcare and animation organised by the Madreselva NGO of the Daughters of Mary Auxiliatrix (Salesian sisters) in aid of poor people. The young missionaries took part in a series of formation meetings during the year in preparation for their summer mission (R.Z.) (Agenzia Fides 30/7/2004; Righe 25, Parole 332)
