And I practiced mercy with them! This is the horizon of the Franciscan Network on Migration’s Colombia Team (RFM Colombia Team) which presented its project, services and activities in the gathering of the Franciscan Family, Colombia, last Monday, August 23, 2021.
In the globalized world of today, the sense of belonging to a single human family is fading, and the dream of working together for justice and peace seems an outdated utopia (Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti, number 30). The political and economic authorities have stated that human mobility is a national security problem, and this has impacted the guarantee of human rights of people in transit and in the ways in which we see this complex and multi-causal phenomenon. So what is our mission as Franciscans in the face of the needs of excluded and abandoned migrant brothers and sisters? The members of the RFM Colombia Team made this call: we are repairers of their life endeavors from within the culture of the encounter.
Let’s see why. With the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus reminds us that we must become a neighbor to those who need us. And he exhorts us to give a universal dimension to our call to love, transcending all prejudices, all historical or cultural barriers, all petty interests (Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti, number 83). Francis of Assisi invites us to do the same, because he lived his conversion when he embraced the leper, and this inspired him to recognize a universal fellowship without borders or limits based on cultures, beliefs or species.
As part of the Franciscan Network for Migrants, the RFM Colombia Team began its journey in March 2021, responding to the needs identified in the Congress of the Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity with Creation (JPIC), as we confront the situation of our migrant brothers and sisters. How are we doing this? In order to articulate his work with the Franciscan Network on Migration from a fluid and constant dialogue, Friar Jaime Campos, RFM Steering Committee member, participated in the gathering to publicize the RFM. The purpose was to present the rationale for the Network, the actions being undertaken, its organization and its connection with other networks. Also, Ana Victoria López, assistant to the Executive Secretariat of the RFM, was present and shared with us several experiences she has had in serving migrant brothers and sisters.
The RFM Colombia Team is making a diagnosis of human mobility in country in order to identify actors, organizations, institutions that work with migrants and connect nodes of the network. “We plan to carry out the Fonda Caminera to accompany the transit of migrant brothers and sisters, starting with the western corridor that connects Pasto, Popayán, Cali, Pereira and Armenia.” On the other hand, the RFM Colombia Team has been developing a service for Venezuelan migrants in Medellín, and as a result of this work, it presented the results of a focus group to the RFM so that the Network could participate in the Ecclesial Assembly through the CLAMOR Network.
The words and feelings shared in the gathering were personified with the declamation of the poem, Migrante: the [first] voices of the Venezuelan diaspora. And they resonated with the song, Wandering Diamond, performed in a video by the Aterciopelados. In closing, we leave the following question: if not now, then when?
Nydia Cecilia Díaz Pérez
RFM-Colombia Team
