The Catholic Diocese of Yei has on Thursday December 14, 2023, launched its new strategic plan for 2024/2028 which require an amounts of 14,665,231 US Dollars for the strategic plans to be implemented.
The purpose of the 5 years strategic plan is to enrich the Christian community with an inclusive service to build their faith and commitment in Christ.
The new strategic plan aims also to expand evangelisation and the pastoral services, increasing access to basic social services to the community, strengthening and developing institutional structures of the diocese.
The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Yei Rt. Rev. Alex Lodiong Sakor stated that, they do not just launch the document, but rather their commitment to make sure that the plan is put into practice.
“We are not just launching the document, but we are launching our commitment to make sure that what we have learned is realized, and I want to say from the very beginning I have been always optimistic and I am quite sure this strategic plan will succeed.”
Bishop Lodiong says, they will make sure that Yei Diocese starts implementing the strategic plan, and the partners will come when they are doing their part.
“One point I will bring to your attention is, we are going to start it ourselves, and our partners will come to support us when we are already implementing the strategic plan.”
Bishop Alex dispels the mindset of people saying the Catholic Church gets its money from Rome.
He emphasized that, the money people think it use to come from Rome was coming from the poor people like South Sudanese.
“Somebody mentioned here that in the past, the Catholic Church use to get their money from Rome, but I want to clarify this to you today. When the missionary were coming to us, they came with their own money and that why people think our money is coming from Rome but do you know how that money was coming, the money was coming from people like you, poor people like you. So we need to work hard to make sure that we implement our strategic plan.”
The Catholic prelate believes that, the people of South Sudan can do what other countries are doing and implement the strategic plan.
“I would like to say that we ourselves we can do it and I am quite sure our people are willing to do it. I want to say do not say I am poor and I cannot contribute, take that one out from your mind because you have the potential to give.”
He added that the people of South Sudan and Church should stand and work together to avoid waiting for donors all the time.
Bishop Ladiong narrated that the Catholic Diocese of Yei will do its best to raise money to implement the Strategic Plan through the resources that the Diocese can raise internally.
“From the very beginning, I said any activities that we are going to carry out in the Diocese; we are going to use our own local resources. This time we are not going out to hire resourceful people, we have our experts among us.”
The implementation stage is what we are going to commit ourselves to; the committees are going to be form to help us move, especially the resource mobilization, “Said Bishop Alex.”
He stressed that resources mobilization is very important because if the resources are not mobilize, the Strategic Plan will not succeed.”
The Bishop thanks the people who have started giving their contributions from the day of launching the strategic plan.
He calls on the people of Yei and South Sudan at large, to work together towards the implementation of the plan to benefit the community.
According to the Strategic Plan launched by the Catholic Diocese of Yei, (CDoY), it will focus on guiding the people to join vocation and promote evangelisation and to install sacramental life among the Christians in the diocese.
The diocese will also focus on the well-being of the Christians through humanitarian, recovery and development interventions which include access to quality education to eradicate illiteracy, provision of health care services, economic empowerment to contribute to poverty reduction, environmental protection, and gender equality.