Radicals learn to act justly, walk humbly with God

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

She has been doing this for over 20 years but now that Nigeria is flirting with democracy, her training has taken a new dimension. The idea, she says, is to form independently minded leaders who observe what goes on in society, organize and educate the people and then lead them to non-violent action.

This is necessary because Nigerians, their country a democracy only since 1999, are used to obeying dictators and doing what they are told.

"Brain-empowerment, critical empowerment, that's what we are teaching," she said. The nun, a policy planner who is currently completing a degree in theology at Berkeley, Calif., also trains seminarians and priests in a bid to get the Church to open up and let lay people take their rightful place.

Many priests are trained to believe they have to do everything in the parish all by themselves - from celebrating Mass to changing the light bulbs. Okure's job is to deprogram them and let them see the light: priests don't work in competition with lay people, but in collaboration with them. She also provides leadership training in several neighbouring countries, including Ghana and Sierra Leone.

"We help people move . . . to doing critical reflection, using the Scriptures as a guide," - Sr. Bernadette Eyewan Okure

Okure, a member of the African Province of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, was in Edmonton as a solidarity visitor for the Alberta division of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. She is director of Nigeria's Development Education and Leadership Services (DELES), a leadership training organization that receives funding from Development and Peace. While in Edmonton March 22-27, Okure spoke to seminarians and lay students at Newman Theological College, held a public meeting at the Catholic Pastoral Centre, led a training session for leaders of Development and Peace, and met privately with Archbishop Thomas Collins.

DELES role is to train community and Church leaders to think before they act. "We help people move from jumping to hasty conclusions to doing critical reflection, using the Scriptures as a guide," she said. The group, said the sister, is committed to integral human development and so its training sessions look at everything from personal growth to community building to politics. Trainees also analyze how situations impact on people as well as questions on land ownership, Church leadership and the role of laity.

"The idea is to mobilize them, to encourage them, to empower them," Okure said. "This way we are helping people to become radical, being willing to suffer and commit themselves to an action and struggle for it. That's our approach."

About 30 DELES staff and 20 volunteers conduct the training, which takes place across Nigeria. "Our outreach is the whole country," Okura said. "Wherever there is a project to help the poor or to help women gain independence, we are there." LEDES also works in seminaries, schools, in parishes. "So we kind of enter the fabric of the society."

The motto of the organization is found in Micah and is a call from Yahweh to his people, "To act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God."

In an interview, the nun spoke of both the material and the "brain" impoverishment of Nigeria's 120 million people. The country is the world's sixth largest producer of oil, but about 70 per cent of the population is unemployed. That's because drilling companies take the bulk of the oil revenues out of the country, leaving hunger and misery behind.

Schools are dilapidated. University professors go for months without getting paid and some have to hold two or three jobs on the side to make ends meet.

What keeps the country going are the small entrepreneurs who trade in the streets and the Nigerians' will to live, Okure said.

"There is also poverty of the brain (in Nigeria)," according to the sister. "The brain is meant to think and to be creative," but people have been conditioned not to think by military dictators who have ruled Nigeria for 30 out of 42 years of its independent life.

Over the years, LEDES has helped change this culture by providing leadership training based on critical analysis, love and respect for people and a commitment to non-violence, Okure noted.

Some politicians who have received training by LEDES now can't conceive politics without consultation. Priests who have being trained by LEDES are the most open, their parishes true examples of collaboration and participation, Okure said. All the seminarians and priests who receive leadership training end up using their homilies to challenge their congregations to get involved in social change.

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 -- Western Catholic Reporter