There is no feast in Ethiopia, religious or civil, so popular and with such large social and family roots. What is celebrated on the day of Meskel? The New Year begins in Ethiopia on September 12. That date should be the starting point for the activities of the school year. But, although it is officially…
Read morePrivate Military Companies (PMC) have become an important player in geopolitics. These companies provide military contractors to states and private citizens and companies to train personnel or to protect workers and assets. And they became a useful and flexible tool in the hand of major powers to advance their agenda reducing the risks. But PMCs…
Read moreFor some time, the Catholic and Protestant communities have been a target for Islamic groups attempting to destabilise the country. They are also trying to weaken its inter-ethnic and inter-religious ties. It was an ordinary Sunday morning in Tanghin, in the northern outskirts of Ouagadougou. The sun, already high in the sky, shone down on…
Read moreOngoing insecurity and bad governance contribute to the expansion of the second largest Ebola epidemics in the DRC and beyond. The World Heath Organisation has declared the deadly Ebola a global health emergency. With over 2,700 cases including 130 health workers and more than 1,590 deaths at the beginning of July 2019, the Ebola epidemics…
Read more
Fifty-seven years after their tragic deaths, the Roman Catholic Church of Congo has started the process of beatification of the twenty missionaries assassinated by government soldiers on the 1 January 1962. Last June, the bishop of Kongolo diocesis, in the Tanganyika province, Mgr Oscar Ngoy wa Mpanga announced that he had initiated the process of…
Read moreThe continent is changing thanks to the increasingly frequent use of new technological tools. A journey through the most innovative start-ups in Africa. Innovation is today the most used word by those who want to talk about Africa going beyond the narrative that speaks of a continent between needs and conflicts, leaders clinging to power…
Read moreIn the northern state of Kano in Nigeria a political war is ongoing. On one side, the Emir of Kano, one of the most respected traditional leaders of the country; on the other, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the governor of Kano, member of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) party. This conflict is having a deep…
Read moreThe Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) is celebrating its Golden Jubilee. It was established on the eve of Vatican II to promote communion and collaboration between the Regional Episcopal Conferences of the continent. Today, SECAM is called to face decisive pastoral and organisational challenges with the courage to open up…
Read moreThey live today almost the way they could have lived one or two hundred years ago, and this way differs a lot from that of their neighbours. We look at the main traits of their culture by analyzing the fundamental stages in a person’s life: birth, puberty, marriage and death. Birth. It is remarked with…
Read moreTravelling around the Gumuz region we did not see specific place for worship. Of course they have explicit acts of worship, but these are few and not particularly elaborate. They do not require a specific place, specific people to carry them out, special clothes or a precisely set ritual. And yet it would an error…
Read moreChanges go very fast. There are many agents responsible for these changes. The first is the government and its laws and programmes of development, which in a society that had been regulating itself by ancestral traditions, has a tremendous impact. The Gumuz have been living so far on their primitive farming of ‘slash and burn’,…
Read moreFrom the Maghreb to Southern Africa, a myriad of flavours, aromas and colours. A journey through past and present tells of the rich traditions in the art of African food. Fonio is an ancient cereal that is resistant to drought. It is one of the oldest crops cultivated in West Africa, from Nigeria, through Benin,…
Read more
The Colombian environmental and peace activist has played a key role in establishing a protected area in the Amazon, providing small farmers with access to…
Read more
One day, two friends named Ebopp and Mbaw went off in search of a good site to establish a farm with fine fields of grain and…
Read more
Young people will play an important role at COP30 in Belém, Brazil. This will give young people a greater voice in climate action and policy-making at…
Read more
