The annual meeting of Formators in the Africa Region met at the Interprovincial Scholasticate in Nairobi (Kenya) on 24-26 July 2017. It was attended by Formation Masters from the four entities or Provinces of the Hospitaller Order, namely, the Saint Augustine Province, the Saint Richard Pampuri Vice-Province (Benin-Togo), the West European Province for Malawi and the French Province for Madagascar. These 4 entities share the Interprovincial Novitiate and Scholasticate.

The meeting provided an opportunity for Africans Formation Masters to pursue their continuing formation, but also to discuss all the issues relating to formation of the Brothers in Africa and Madagascar.

When the meeting began, all the members offered an overview of their fields of action, challenges, activities and future prospects, analysed in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, as well as the threats and opportunities facing formation in Africa.

They then discussed the challenges facing the Brothers of St John of God in the formation field, particularly in the African continent, and the need for inculturating the Order’s formation project (ratio formationis) in Africa. On both these points, the Brothers were given a paper by Sister Jacqueline GITHIRE, a Kenyan Sister of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a psychologist and psychotherapist, and by Fr Méthode Gahungu, a Burdundian  diocesan priest and professor at the Pontifical Salesian University (Salesianum) in Rome, specialising in formation for priests and religious.

The meeting was held in climate of brotherhood, shared with the community of the Nairobi Scholasticate which hosted the meeting.