Zimbabwe: street project gets away from 'sacristy Christianity'

Mbare: They are wearing lovely T-shirts: "CYIA (Catholic Youth in Action) - community service, a priority". They sweep the streets, fill potholes, clean the market place, the cemetery, help stop the sewage flowing across streets and yards … and that way prevent the next wave of Cholera to spread so fast.

Why are you doing this? "We love our place and want it to look clean … It does not help to complain about the useless municipality, we would rather do something ourselves … We want to show that we are committed members of the Church.

These young adults have learnt that a mere sacristy-Christianity is no Christianity at all. People love seeing them. Usually there are 60 or 70 of them. Lobels bakery donates bread for them to eat, the manager of Spar gave them some Mazoe once. They hope others will learn from their example.

The future? They hope to get involved in income-generating projects - another way of building up their own lives and that of the community.