Topic-oriented Youth Ministry in Nicaragua

April 1, 2009 in Church, Enviroment, Faith, HIV/Aids, Justice, Latin America/Carribean, Life, Youth, Youth Ministry, Youth participation

Currently, I am visiting Nicaragua, a country in Central America. Tomorrow, our American segment of the LWF Global Training for young leaders is going start with a small group of people from both Latin- and North America.

Before that, I had the opportunity to learn more about the approach to youth ministry in this young Lutheran church. Katia Cortez is the national youth coordinator and she told me about their work.

In many congregations, there is a youth group that meets weekly – mostly for bible studies. At other times of the week, they youth of the congregation also meet to play sports or to sing together.

The special approach in Nicaragua, however, that they have chosen four important topics they work on on a permanent basis:

  • HIV and Aids
  • Gender differences and Gender based violence
  • Climate Change
  • Sports and culture

One member of the youth groups is in charge of a topic and it is his or her job to make sure that they are well educated on the topic. This person will attend seminars and workshops from other churches or NGOs in order to learn more about it and they will convey the topic to the other youth groups. This is also an important feature of the annual national youth gathering at the beginning of each year.

Many youth organization have annual topics that guides them. But I really liked the coherence of following up a specific topic for a longer period of time and building up a structure for it. I would be interested to know more about how you do it in your context.

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