The Antilles Episcopal Conference Youth Commission (AECYC) is continuing its missionary project within the Caribbean . Already, the pilot project launched earlier this year has trained and placed young Catholic adults in Hosororo , Guyana.

The project is being conducted under the auspices of the Bishops Conference and is being planned, co-ordinated and implemented by the AEC Youth Commission, chaired by Bishop Robert Rivas.

The Spiritual Director is Fr Christian Chambers, who co-ordinates house sessions and shapes the direction of the programme. It trains young people who desire to share their faith with Caribbean parishes that do not have enough human resources to get faith programmes and other activities started.

Strict criteria are used to select missionaries and applicants must pass a screening process conducted either in their own parish or by the Youth Commission in Port of Spain in order to be considered for the training programme.

Candidates are prepared for missionary life through training at the Missionary Institute, located at the Regional Seminary of St John Vianney and Uganda Martyrs in Trinidad .

This year's student-missionaries were exposed to a two-tiered preparation process. The first was a six-week, live-in formation programme, which included in-depth study of the liturgy, teachings of the Church, and topics such as Church History, Human Development, Pastoral Counselling and Ministry to Youth.

The Institute hosted 12 student-missionaries from St Vincent and the Grenadines , Grenada , Barbados , Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname , who all had the opportunity to make new friends discover cultural differences and hone their interpersonal skills.

The AECYC says the six-week period allows candidates to fully discern whether they really want to become missionaries. As part of this process, there were scheduled daily Masses and community meetings. Fr Robert Llanos and Sr Julie Marie Peters provided pastoral counselling , and Fr Hugh Joyeau served as confessor.

Candidates were also placed in pairs in local parishes for a weekend at a time to get a taste of the missionary experience.

Following successful completion of the formation programme, There was a six-week waiting period before the missionaries found out where they would be placed.

Participants in 2005 Missionary Institute

Dardaine explained that the Bishops of the various dioceses request missionaries for parishes where the need is greatest. It falls to him as Missionary Co-ordinator, to make preliminary investigations and ensure adequate provision is made for the missionaries' stay.

Mr Dardaine accompanied Bridget Edmund, Therrol Joseph and Joseph Wells, the first group of missionaries, on their maiden trip to Guyana. After landing in Georgetown, they took a six-seater airplane to Hosororo.

Parish priest Fr Jim Lalaguna, originally from the Philippines , picked up the group and took them by van over Guyana 's mountains and through valleys and rugged terrain to the missionary compound.

Hosororo is the Amerindian word for “falling water” and was named after the massive waterfall in the area. Although some parishes are accessible by land, a large number can only be reached by boat. The Wanini River is just one of the waterways the missionaries must travel to get to Hosororo's 18 satellite parishes.

The group is currently actively involved in various aspects of parish work and accompanies the priests on house-to-house visits, assists in liturgy and catechesis, and is starting a programme of pastoral outreach to young people.

The parish telephone is sponsored by the owner of a travel agency, situated some 15 minutes away, and allows missionaries to stay in touch with family and friends through phone calls or emails.

Full-time missionaries receive a monthly stipend of US$100. The project is sponsored by the AECYC and funded in part by the missionaries' dioceses and the dioceses to which they are assigned, with the missionaries expected to pay their airfare.

Mr Dardaine believes that the project will thrive. He says that the Church in the Caribbean is slowly turning away from its colonial heritage as young people take more active roles in Church activities and parish development.

They are moving away from European traditions and taking greater ownership of the Church, as they want to make it more fully their own, he adds.

On behalf of the Antilles Episcopal Conference Youth Commission, Mr Dardaine wishes to thank the staff and presenters at the Missionary Institute this year who gave generously of their time and talents and assisted in the building up of the institute.

The formation programme is available annually and next year's programme is carded to run from June 14 to July 21. The deadline for applications is February 20, 2006.

For more information, contact the AEC Youth Commission at AECYC Mission Secretariat, c/o GANG Community, 44 Diego Martin Main Road , Diego Martin. Tel: 632-4264, Fax: 633-4685 or email: aecmission@hotmail.com