Empower communities to shape their own future – Caritas Africa President urges staff

President of Caritas Africa, Msgr. Pierre Cibambo Ntakobajira, has called on Caritas Directors and Technical Staff across Africa to embrace community-led disaster risk management as a vital tool for empowerment.

Speaking at the opening of a three-day training workshop in Accra on December 2, he emphasized the importance of equipping communities to take control of their own resilience, while noting that Caritas’ role is to support, accompany, and empower rather than to impose solutions.

“We are Caritas, a social pastoral instrument of the Church and an indispensable dimension of its evangelizing mission,” Msgr. Cibambo said.

“Our specific role is to assist the bishops in their ministry of charity, carrying out our task by attending to the poorest and most needy, assisting in humanitarian emergencies, and helping to spread charity and justice in the world in the light of the Gospel.”

Msgr. Cibambo underscored the value of community engagement in disaster risk reduction. He quoted an African proverb, “The bowl starts to get warm from the bottom” (la marmite commence à bouillir par le bas), urging the participants to remember that sustainable solutions begin at the grassroots level.

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He emphasized that Caritas’ role goes beyond providing technical solutions—it is about walking alongside communities, understanding their needs, and empowering them to take ownership of their development. “Our role is important for sure,” Msgr. Cibambo continued.

“It consists in accompanying them, which means to reach out to them, to be close to them, to understand their conditions, their culture, to be familiar with their coping mechanisms, to respect their know-how, to listen to their real needs, to journey with them, empowering them, equipping them with knowledge and technical capacity so that they may, at the end, take their destiny into their own hands.”