Mennonite Weekly Review

AKRON, Pa. — Mennonite Central Committee is launching Seed, a two-year program for participants age 20 to 30 composed of international teams focusing on service, reflection and advocacy. It will begin in Colombia and expand to other locations.

Eight to 10 young adults from Canada, the United States, Colombia and other Latin American countries will learn together. They will analyze the Colombian context of social and armed conflict, serve in practical ways through local church programs and begin discerning the roles and ways they can transform society and use advocacy in their home communities and beyond.

“This is just another piece of the strategy as we continue our work in both advocacy and service — which is speaking from within the communities we are serving in hopes of increasing our capacity to connect large structural issues with people who we have real and authentic relationships with,” said Daniel Leonard, program coordinator.

“It is our hope that in doing this we will have greater understanding of how we are connected globally and how we can be better connected.”

The program’s development has been a collaborative process with the Mennonite Church of Colombia, the Mennonite Brethren Church and the Brethren in Christ Church of Colombia. The program seeks to meet the needs of the Colombian church by connecting young adults from North, Central and South America with the Colombian churches’ work of peace and justice in the midst of violence and poverty.

The reflection component will begin in Colombia with three months studying language, culture, global economics, development, peacebuilding and theology.

The participants will individually go to diverse locations in Colombia. They will work with local Anabaptist churches to facilitate their programs.

A final two-week session is designed to explore advocacy tools in order to communicate and invite others to work alongside the Colombian church.

MCC is exploring expanding the Seed program to Congo, as well as locations in the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean.