The current virtual learning initiative, “IMCS Continued Learning and Action Program (CLAP)”, has taught us that there is a greater impact in reaching out to student leaders directly and in larger numbers. Secondly, this also gives an opportunity for the student leaders from national movements to learn on issues of social justice, analyse their current context, examine their current approaches of social action, redefine their spirituality of action and seek clarity for better action through virtual interactions and assistance from experts. 

IMCS CLAP is a series of 5 days virtual capacity building workshops conducted weekly, focusing on different thematic areas every month. The 10 months long capacity building program is covering the IMCS National Movements, Ecumenical Partners and Solidarity Groups worldwide. 

Objectives

• To understand the current situation and its social, political, economic, and cultural effects on marginalised
• To identify key problems with appropriate analysis
• To evaluate current actions of the movements and civil society organisations
• To find ways for addressing problems and issues
• To build capacities of student leaders

Process and Outcome

• IMCS CLAP shall consist of 5 days workshop 

• Each month the theme of the IMCS CLAP

• Each workshop will have maximum of 30 participants covering 90 participants per month 

• IMCS CLAP aims at building capacities of key leaders in the national movements and influence policies, programmes, and student actions.

• IMCS CLAP aims to identify possible second line leaders within the movements.

Themes

• National Transformative Leadership (NTL) Programme Physical Program

*5% to 10% of the participants slots are available for the like-minded Catholic youth organizations and ecumenical partners.

As a part of the IMCS Pax Romana GISEAS project, IMCS Asia Pacific region has designed the “GLOCALIZING Students’ Catholic Action – National Transformative Leadership (NTL) Programme”. The programme has been designed after much deliberation about the regional social, political, economic and cultural contexts and also the current realities of the tertiary students’ community. This programme is expected to be a Training for the trainers where participating Student leaders will be given the capacity to respond the specific concerned areas recognized in the problematization of the programme in the hopes that they would be the trainers for their own student communities and the marginalized communities.

As the IMCS global survey revealed major gaps in skill-based student leadership at all levels of the movement, National Transformative Leadership Programme will be conducted, focusing on creatively and tangibly engage national student leaders in a process of learning, experimentation, action and solidarity. This leadership program will help the Catholic Tertiary student leaders to become prophetic and relevant voices in their campuses, local Churches and student communities across the Globe.

The National Transformative Leadership Programme shall resort to the following learning process:

1. Critical Analysis 

1. Socio Cultural Political Economical Analyses

• Understanding Context (Problematising)
• Exploring the different tools for analysis
• Identification of the different issues

1. Thematic Analysis (gender, environment, food security, citizenship, migration, indigenous community, racism etc.)

• Mapping and analysing the different issues

1. Operationalising “Spirituality of Action”

• Introduce & deepen the understanding of the Spirituality of Action
• Finding ways to integrate the Spirituality of Action in day to day living
• Formulating practices and initiating them as a form of collective community action

1. Transformative Leadership Skills

• Understand the concept of Transformative leadership for initiating change
• Define Leadership for transformation
• Acquiring Skill for transformation (community mobilisation, human rights, popular education- communication, and advocacy)

Thematic Focus

The Global initiative is responding mainly to the aspirations and expectations of Catholic students worldwide. The thematic component of this National Transformative Leadership (NTL) program is therefore built up around the challenging realities expressed by the students at the national, sub regional and regional levels. 

Therefore, there will be topics that will be globally prepared for the different thematic workshops, but there are other relevant topics that are specific to some regions.

• Transformative leadership

This is a topic which many students have raised, especially relevant for Africa, Latin America and Asia. There are many leadership programs developed and proposed to the youth nowadays but, from what came out from the Global consultation is that many of these programs do not articulate with their contexts or capacitate them to offer adequate solutions to the challenges of their student communities such as gender inequality, social exclusion, climate change, water scarcity … etc.

• Environmental issues

The African and Asian students raised environmental challenges and the necessity for them to build up their capacities to tackle efficiently these issues of environmental justice and ecological conversion. These training, as expressed by the students, need to broaden/deepen the student leaders’ understanding of the ecological crises, such as climate change adaptation, coastal cities at risk, global warming, disaster risk reduction for resilience, based on the UN documents, Paris Agreement and the Catholic Social Teaching and Papal Encyclicals. The trainings shall aim at addressing issues of environment and livelihood (Eco-entrepreneurship), Environment and Spirituality, Ecological Citizenship, Ecological Responsibility, Sustainable Lifestyles etc.

• Social and political citizenship (and analysis)

The students from countries in development expressed mainly the desire to be trained on these matters as many of them still confronted with the question of democratisation. The capacity for the students to develop social and political analyses for understanding the complexities and subtleties of political manipulation and socio-political violence/conflicts involving youth. This thematic is of special importance to the Catholic Students in Africa to exercise a transformative leadership.

• Grassroots Advocacy

IMCS Pax Romana has been active in advocacy at the UN level, bringing the students’ voices in the international arena. However, the recent consultation showed the important of building the capacity of the national student leaders in terms of the skills of advocacy, enabling them to be able to advocate of their own local communities. The advocacy skills will enable the student leaders to strategically raise their voices vis-à-vis the political and public authorities.

• Spirituality of action (being a changemaker Catholic)

The question of social and political involvement of the Christians, especially youth, is an old topic but of relevant in the current context. The student leaders need to have a good grasp of the biblical and theological foundations of the Spirituality of Action to confront the indifference and apathy in the Catholic youth so that IMCS Pax Romana live up to its name as ‘A movement’.

• Peace building (and Intercultural dialogue)

As Africa and Middle East are being confronted with a wide range of multifaced conflicts involving young people, the question of peace building, and dialogue become crucial. In Africa, the Muslims and Christians represent more than 95% of the population and many conflicts are related to these religions. That shows the transformational potential that religions represent for Africa. The interest of the Catholic students for peacebuilding and dialogue is a good step to deepen by the capacities of the youth leaders.

• Solidarity

In a world marred by inequalities, the need for solidarity is an aspect that came mostly from the European and North American students. There is a necessity to build bridges, organize and reflect on pathways for solidarity is integral to the IMCS Pax Romana’s Spirituality of Action. For each of these topics, a position paper will be prepared and provided to trainees and their grassroot communities. These position papers will be grounded in the few of the UN documents and the Catholic Magisterium, and will use Human right approach. In addition to that, some guides with theoretical frameworks will be provided for leadership exercises.

Follow-up Actions

A Follow-up community Actions shall be an integral part of the NTL Programmes of IMCS Global Initiative. The national student leaders shall engage in planning for a thematic intervention as the follow up of the Global Initiatives in their respective countries. 

In addition to providing virtual support for the incubation of the follow-up community actions, Global Initiative shall also make financial seed provisions available in each of the National Trainings.

• Global Advocacy Training (GAT) Program Virtual Program

*5% to 10% of the participants slots are available for the like-minded Catholic youth organizations and ecumenical partners.

As a part of the wider GISEAS project, IMCS Pax Romana has designed the “Global Advocacy training Programme”. The programme has been designed after much deliberation about the social, political, economic and cultural contexts and also the current realities of the tertiary students’ community. 

This programme is expected to be an online Training for the youth where participating Student leaders will be given the capacity to respond the socio political economic cultural and religious concerns through advocacy with the hope that they would be the advocates and trainers for their own student communities and the marginalized communities.

Pax Romana in Advocacy

Following the global vision of the movement, since the foundation in 1921, Pax Romana has been active in advocacy in National and International levels in religious as well as secular platforms. 

In the recent decades IMCS Pax Romana United Nation’s advocacy team has been the responsible arm of the organization for the Global advocacy efforts. IMCS Pax Romana has been an active partner and contributor to the UN processes through the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (UN MGCY) which is the UN General Assembly mandated official, formal and self-organized space for Children and Youth to contribute to and engage in certain intergovernmental and allied policy processes at United Nations which was established in 1992.

Objectives of the Advocacy Training Programme

Pax Romana has been an inspiration and a training ground for many civil society and political leaders for decades. 

The unique formation opportunities through capacity building programmes and direct participation in policy making as well as solidarity actions have been the methodology of the movement for forming the young leaders all around the world. Through the Advocacy Training Program, IMCS Pax Romana expects to achieve the following objectives.

• Enhancing the knowledge in advocacy.
• Reaching out to youth and student leaders representing diverse backgrounds from all the parts of the world.
• Creating a common training programme and materials which can be reused in the national and regional levels for the advocacy trainings.
• Creating a Pax Romana global advocacy manual.
• Building national and regional advocacy teams which will be connected to the IMCS Pax Romana advocacy team.
• Providing international advocacy engagement opportunities to the youth leaders who successfully finish the training programme.

Topics covered in the Advocacy Training Programme

The IMCS Pax Romana “Global Advocacy Training (GAT) Programme” which will be conducted online, is expected to cover the basic topics related to Pax Romana advocacy engagements.

Continually Jesus withdrew from people, daily life activities, and the demands of his ministry to be alone with the Father and pray. Jesus’ solitude and silence is a significant theme in the Gospels. His ongoing, intimate relationship with his Abba was the source of his compassion, wisdom, and power that we see on every page of the Gospels.

The priority of Jesus’ solitude and silence is everywhere in the Gospels. It’s how he began his ministry. It’s how he made important decisions. It’s how he dealt with troubling emotions like grief. It’s how he dealt with the constant demands of his ministry and cared for his soul. It’s how he taught his disciples. It’s how he prepared for important ministry events. It’s how he prepared for his death on the cross.

We live at a time of a new social order, various new/modified components of society. There is a change in the traditional social systems, social structures, and social institutions. The world has learned to live with the changes that the world has seen.  In the new world order, there are good and bad things. There are lots of positives that we can enjoy in the current scenario. We are connected with far of people and communities, better health care, better educational opportunities, changed the life of women, quality of food clothing and shelter and better future for our kids. The development has taken centre stage in the new socio-economic paradigm.

However, we live in a fast-moving world. Human beings do not have time to look around and enjoy the serenity of nature and live like a passing cloud that gives occasional joy. The world has such a fantastic thing that can be instrumental in understanding the behaviour of various aspects of living and non-living beings in the world. 

There is no doubt that the world order is changing but its positively changing for a few and leaving out many. The gap between rich and poor has widened.  The new policies of the government are favouring the rich in accumulating economic and social capital. There is an increase in discrimination based on gender, caste, race, culture, language, and region. The battle to survive has led to violence. The violence against has gone up across the world. 

In these contradicting segments, there is a ray of hope at the end of the tunnel. The world has seen individuals, groups fighting at all level to make sure that the resources are available for the present and future generations. There is an emergence of new alternative world order that focusses on the sustainability of resources. One such group is the student community.

The 15day Global Social Immersion pilgrimage looks at the following aspects.

1. Working/experiencing with the People
2. Taking time out of our work as Jesus did.

The first part of the day will focus on being with the people and do what they do in day to day life. These collective experiences will strengthen the community life of the groups and identify the community life, social structure, social capital, rural economy and power dynamics operating in the communities. 

The second part of the day will focus on the footsteps of Jesus Christ. The participants will spend time in silence and solitude to experience that Christ had. The consolidation of social experience will culminate in prayer as Jesus did. 

These 15days of Global Social Immersion Pilgrimage will enhance the students perspective on communities by being rooted in the teaching of Jesus Christ.

• Global Advanced Advocacy Training (GAAT) Program Physical Program

As a continuation of “Global Advocacy training Programme (GAT)” IMCS Pax Romana has built a programme, “Global Advanced Advocacy Training Programme” to elevate the level of advocacy to international level. “GAT” was a foundation for advocacy, whereas “GAAT” aims to equip the participants with advanced tools for advocacy and build their capacity to advocate in international platforms. The programme will be organised in a physical location, for 15 days (180 Hours) which helps the participants to experience the tools and intensity of advocacy in a well-structured training process.  

1. Objectives of the “Global Advanced Advocacy Training Programme”

Through the Global Advanced Advocacy Training Program, IMCS Pax Romana expects to achieve the following objectives.

• Building catalyst of advocacy
• Developing skills required for advocacy
• Reaching out to youth and student leaders representing diverse backgrounds from all the parts of the world.
• Creating a common training programme and materials which can be reused in the national and regional levels for the advocacy trainings.
• Creating a Pax Romana global advocacy manual.
• Building national and regional advocacy teams which will be connected to the IMCS Pax Romana advocacy team.
• Providing international advocacy engagement opportunities to the youth leaders who successfully finish the training programme.

1. Workshop Content & Methodology

The workshop has been divided into three sections:

1. Tools
   1. Equipping participants with various tools 
   2. Enhancing advocacy skills
2. Design
   1. Planning an advocacy campaign
   2. Components of Advocacy
3. Implementation
   1. Advocacy mechanism
   2. Advocacy platforms

1. Draft Program Design

• IMCS International Coordinators Training (ICT) Physical Program*Few slots are available for the International Coordinators of like-minded Catholic youth organizations and ecumenical partners.

The International coordinators of IMCS are the key implementers, facilitators and coordinators of the Global Initiative. In order to enhance their capacity to better organise the different aspects of the Global Initiative, the following training will be conducted.

Under the program, IMCS International Coordinators, Regional Coordinators and Sub Regional Coordinators are expected to be trained. The Dynamics of the programme shall focus on the following key elements/Skills of learning for effective implementation:

1. Global Analysis  

• Analysis of global socio-political economic, cultural and religious context
• Contextual analyses of the global IMCS and student catholic action
• Identifying key issues, problems and challenges (global consultation)

1. Conceptualisation and Planning

• Conceptualisation of the Engagement
• Development of the content
• Program Planning
• How to do Benchmarking
• Impact Projection

1. Resource Mobilisation

• Budgeting
• Sourcing resources
• Financial policy & accountability mechanism
• Self-sustainability

1. Action and Coordination

• Mobilisation 
• Partnership building
• Capacity building
• Implementation and Management
• Networking & Advocacy

1. Documentation (Knowledge Management)

• Data Collection 
• Collection and analysis
• Report Writing
• Disbursement
• Archiving (Digitalization of documents) 

1. Evaluation and Way forward

• Self-evaluation
• Internal Evaluation
• Peer Evaluation
• External evaluation
• Follow-up

• Global Chaplains and Animators Formation and Exchange (G CAFE) Physical Program

The role of the Chaplains and the Animators as accompaniers of the Students’ prophetic Catholic Action is crucial to the sustainability of the IMCS Global-regional-national Movements. Over the years we have realized the need for enhancing the capacities of the Chaplains and Animators to enable them to respond intellectually, socially and spiritually to the growing demands of the tertiary student communities. Therefore, Global/G-CAFE shall follow the following process below to enhance the chaplains and animators’ formation and exchange:

1. Mapping our World: Recognising the global realities

1. Taking stock of the current realities in the different contexts

1. Critical understanding the global social, historical, economic, legal, political and spiritual contexts.

1. Immersion: Feeling the Pulse of Students

Accompanying the Student communities necessitates a clearer understanding of the student communities. 

1. Exposure: bring the Chaplains and Animators to a face to face encounter and dialogue with the students in order to better understand the students’ current realities, their identity, struggles, expectations, toles, the existing and emerging spiritualities.

1. Dialogue: Listening to the voices of the students and youth on their aspirations, expectations, needs and responses. 

1. Synthesis: process of critically analysing the experiences of exposure

1. Equip: Defining Mission of Accompaniment

1. Theological Reflection: A process of theologising on their exposure-experiences, their struggles, and challenges in order to come out with actions related to the accompaniment of the students. 
2. Skills Development:

1. Youth Training & Management Skills (Popular Education & Communication skills)

1. Legal Skills (Youth Policy, National, Sub-regional, Regional and Global Mechanisms)

1. Empowerment: Spirituality of Action

1. Draw up National, Sub-regional and Regional Plan of Action and their relation to the Spirituality of Action. 

1. Planning for a ‘Moving School’ of Accompaniment – Formation & Exchange (G-CAFE) and programme for continued empowerment of the Chaplains & Animators

1. Defining Mission of Accompaniment

• GISEAS Trainers Program (GTP) – Physical Program

GISEAS, an initiative of IMCS, aims to cover 88 countries over a period of five years, the vital component for this initiative are the trainers. IMCS Pax Romana plans to train the trainers through “GISEAS Trainers Program”, which is a 10-day (120 Hours) programme. 

• Objectives of the “GISEAS Trainers Program (GTP)”

Through the GISEAS Trainers Program (GTP), IMCS Pax Romana expects to achieve the following objectives.

• • Review the process of knowledge delivery, identify weaknesses, highlight current trends and practices within the context of their work; 
  • To equip themselves with necessary conceptual and practical skills in order to creatively engage in the process of facilitation
  • Understanding ‘Popular Education Methodology’ and its relevance to IMCS’s Mission

• Transformation of knowledge delivery to facilitation

• Workshop Content & Methodology

The workshop has been divided into three sections:

1. Context Setting
   1. Understanding the concept of training
   2. Context of participants and their way of training
2. Popular Education Methodology 
   1. Understanding the concept
   2. History and relevance
3. Tools for Popular Education Methodology
   1. Using the tools for transformation

• Draft Program Design