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Young African woman raising hands in praise

Arusha, Tanzania 2018. Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC

That means youth will need to make that future work, urged Mwombeki. “When, in your home, your roof is leaking, you don’t go to your neighbor’s—but rather you fix the roof,” he said. “Ultimately, you have to fix the roof because that is your house. Africa is our house.”

Mwombeki deeply believes that young people will bring about transformation in many ways. “This is the time for the youth to think about how Africa will be in 20 years or in 30 years, when all these young people will be 50 or 60 years old, and progressing,” he said. “This is the task.”

Keynote speaker Hon. Prof. PLO Lumumba noted that the 16 June is a very important day because we choose to commemorate the African child. “This commemoration is born out of the events that commenced on the 16th day of June in the year 1976 in Soweto in South Africa,” he said, referring to the Soweto uprising, a series of demonstrations and protests led by 20,000 students in South Africa. They were met with police brutality and many were shot and killed.

“I think it was the most dramatic demonstration of man's inhumanity to man,” said Lumumba. “But yet there is a sense in which Africa continues to be promising and disturbing at once.”

The All Africa Conference of Churches is organizing a series of webinars to promote the campaign “Africa: My Home. My Future” in the run-up to the All Africa Youth Congress scheduled for 2022 in Ghana.

The All Africa Conference of Churches

Youth in the Ecumenical movement