WORK PLAN 2019-2021
“VICENTINIZING THE BIG HOMELAND: 22 YEARS OF MYSTICS AND PROPHECY”
(Cf. Ap 7:9)

We want to radiate the Vincentian Charism, inserting ourselves in the reality of the indigenous and peasant peoples and the care of the Common House, gathering all the legacy of our grandparents and grandmothers in the Vincentian Family, as well as the testimony of innumerable martyrs of the Great Homeland (Latin America and the Caribbean). We feel the challenge of Mysticism and Prophecy as a commitment of effective and transformative love with God and the most vulnerable people. It is an inheritance that demands greater incarnation.

Vincentian Family Council of Latin America (FAVILA). Seated: Josefina Gómez (from the Dominican Republic, member of AMM, vocal); Leny Guzman (from Bolivia, member of SSVP, treasurer); Sr. Romilda Paludo (Daughter of Charity of Brazil, vocal). Standing: Rafael Cruz (from Brazil, member of JMV, media); Brother Stuardo Marroquin (Congregation of the Mission, of Guatemala, vice-coordinator); Ligia Ferráez Evia (from Mexico, member of AIC, coordinator); Ramón López (from Colombia, member of MISEVI, secretary); Father Flavio Pereira, cm (from Nicaragua, team advisor and international head of the Vincentian Family for Latin America and Africa.

OVERALL OBJECTIVE:

Seek support, animation, constant communication and the articulation of processes between the branches of the Vincentian Family in Latin American and the Caribbean, in the continental and international spheres, for the proper incarnation of the charism in the reality of our peoples, valuing the identity and autonomy of each branch.

ANIMATION:

1. Ensure the follow-up of the agreements made at the last FAVILA meeting, in Cochabamba 2018.
   • Carry out a “work route” to the next meeting of the Vincentian Family of Latin America and the Caribbean, in Santo Domingo – Dominican Republic 2021, through a Preparatory Document.
2. Support the National Councils of the Vincentian Family, stimulating their creation where there are none.
   • Collect information on the existing National Councils of Vincentian Family and create a database.
   • Conform Regions and their respective animators-companions in Latin America and the Caribbean, as follows:
     • Mexico: Ligia Ferráez (Animator and companion, FAVILA Council).
     • Caribbean (Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico): Josefina Gómez (Animator and companion, FAVILA Council).
     • Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama): Stuardo Marroquín (Animator and companion, FAVILA Council).
     • Andean Region (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia): Ramón López (Animator and companion, FAVILA Council).
     • Brazil North: Rafael Cruz (Animator and companion, FAVILA Council).
     • Brazil South: Romilda Paludo (Animator and companion, FAVILA Council).
     • Southern Cone: Leny Guzmán (Animator and companion, FAVILA Council).
3. Promote the emergence of formators and lay advisors.
   • Identify the current experiences of formators and lay advisors in the countries and regions of Latin America and the Caribbean.
   • Generate links and training relationships between countries and regions.
   • Encourage links with the international bodies of the Vincentian Family: Collaboration Commission, Systemic Change Commission, FamVin Homeless Alliance, CIF, Curitiba School, CIEVI and others.
4. Promote the Vincentian Song Festival.
5. Promote the Method of Prayer of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Catechism of the Miraculous Medal.
   • Create popular digital and print versions to be promoted and disseminated, with the necessary required formation.

COMMUNICATION

1. Create, strengthen and interrelate the 7 Regions of the Vincentian Family in Latin America and the Caribbean.
   • Promoting virtual meetings with the National Councils, by Regions.
   • Build Regional Animation Teams of the Vincentian Family.
   • Promoting face-to-face meetings by Regions, of the Vincentian Family.
2. Accompany people, groups, countries or regions in vulnerable or high-risk situations, through fluid and constant communication, and the emission of a prophetic word.
   • Share the reality of Latin America and the Caribbean at each virtual meeting of the FAVILA Council.
   • Share the reality that is lived in regional meetings.
   • Issue solidarity and complaint comuniqués, when necessary.
3. Strengthen our communication, increasing our knowledge, training and joint commitment in favor of the impoverished, exchanging tools and experiences of projects.
   • Sending periodic messages to the National Councils of the Vincentian Family.
   • Know and emphasize the best Vincentian practices of each country and at the regional level.
   • Promote collaboration between regions.
4. Encourage and promote collaboration and interrelation, to make institutional alliances with other ecclesial, social, human rights, associations or popular movements, seeking political incidents.
   • Seek a more direct and fluid relationship with CLAR (Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious and Religious).
   • Stimulate and promote the relationship and links with the Conferences of Religious of each country, especially with the Commissions of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC).
   • Link with peasant, indigenous, ecological, women’s social movements, others.
5. Implement the use of social networks and newsletters for making the Vincentian Family visible.
   • Strengthen the Website, social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, others.
   • Periodical general newsletters.

PROCESS ARTICULATION

1. Know, support and disseminate common projects: work, training, celebrations.
   • Inform of the common projects (where two or more branches participate) that exist in the countries and regions of the Vincentian Family, be it work, training, celebrations, others.
   • Perform a mapping of common projects.
2. Exchange of experiences.
   • Gather information on places willing to receive the exchange and collaboration of volunteers.
   • Develop procedures to facilitate the exchange and collaboration of volunteers and Vincentian best practices.
   • Dissemination through social networks.
3. Joining forces to work not only in the line of assistance and promotion, but also in the change of unfair structures, seeking transformative actions in the line of justice and solidarity, using the Systemic Change method.
   • Request the support, participation and advice of the international instances of the Vincentian Family.
   • Continue training on Systemic Change.
   • Encourage the National Councils of the Vincentian Family for the formation of National Commissions for Systemic Change, with the representation of all branches of the Vincentian Family.
4. Promote the recovery of the Vincentian Historical Memory of Latin America and the Caribbean: saints, martyrs of all branches of the Vincentian Family. Museums, documents, experiences, others.
   • Motivate the National Councils and local centers to make their historical semblances, Vincentian testimonies (of commitment and work with the impoverished), including the centers or places where there is no more presence of the Vincentian Family, but a trace has been left.
   • Request the National Councils to write and disseminate the “Vincentian witnesses” who can strengthen the saints of the Vincentian Family, in fact or in law.
5. Promote the structuring of the different Vincentian guilds (set of people who share the same trade or profession).
   • Request the information of occupation or profession of the members of the Vincentian Family, through the respective National Councils.
   • Start calls for guilds.
6. Promote “solidarity markets.”
   • Promote handicrafts or local products in the different meetings of the Vincentian Family, promoting alternative models of market and economy.
7. Seek and maintain a relationship with the Universities, especially those Vincentians, to generate processes of collaboration and insertion of their students in projects of the Vincentian Family.
   • Propose these spaces for collaboration and volunteering through the Regional Animation Teams and the National Councils of the Vincentian Family.

FOR THE ROAD… For the next National or Regional Meetings of the Vincentian Family and in the Family Branch processes…

“Vicentinizing the Big Homeland: 22 years of Mysticism and Prophecy”

“Vicentinizing” the Great Homeland means making visible the new poverty and the structures that generate them in Latin America and the Caribbean. Sensitize ourselves before them and illuminate them from the Gospel, confront them with the project of the Kingdom of God and his justice, and react in an affective and effective way, according to our spirituality inherited from Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Louise de Marillac. Spirituality embodied and committed to immediate action and also to the transformation of that reality that generates victims.

To respond with Mysticism and Prophecy, from our Vincentian spirituality, we must be in full harmony with the universal ecclesial movements, especially those raised from our Big Homeland (Latin America and the Caribbean). Therefore, we invite you to retake and reread the documents Evangelii Gaudium and Laudato Si, doing it from our charism, asking us what does it tell us? what does it challenge us? what can we do? what would Jesus do in our place today? We invite you to take this route of reflection and continuous and concrete action, towards the next FAVILA Meeting, to be held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in 2021.

As FAVILA Council, we seek to find common routes to respond as Vincentian Family and strengthen prophetic solidarity networks, applying Systemic Change and Collaboration. We are certain that the next Synod of the Amazon is vital to enlighten our being and work. Therefore we invite you to be daring, risky and let us question, to respond with the strength of the Holy Spirit that inhabits us, according to the heart of God, in favor of the most impoverished and suffering, and of our Common House.

FAVILA COUNCIL

• Josefina Gómez AMM
• Leny Guzmán SSVP
• Ligia Ferráez AIC
• Rafael Cruz JMV
• Ramón López MISEVI
• Romilda Paludo DC
• Stuardo Marroquín CM

IMPORTANT: Communicate with the respective regional managers to create the VICENTINE FAMILY REGIONAL ANIMATION TEAMS… Thank you.