“Take to the road… you’re a missionary” is the slogan of Missionary Childhood Day which is to be celebrated on Sunday, 28 January. The aim of the Day is to encourage children and adolescents to join the missionary groups that exist in parishes, in schools or Christian associations, in order to involve children and adults in the missionary activities of the Church and promote among the faithful economic cooperation on behalf of the children most in need who live in mission territories. According to Archbishop Francisco Pérez González, national director of the Pontifical Mission-Aid Societies (POM), “children have a need for special assistance in the field of education to enable them to discover that life is a great gift of God. Instead they are now enslaved by materialism, absence of values and constant images of violence. Children are not formed well unless they are taught to be generous, courageous and good, and develop healthy habits; if they are not, this could represent a danger for society itself”. Hence the invitation to children to show “solidarity to other more disadvantaged children and support the projects of the POM”. A dossier was published to coincide with this Day; it presents the situation of the children who are suffering in the world due to hunger, disease, lack of education, war, forced labour, and family and social abandonment. Aids for catechesis and religious education in schools have been prepared, supported by CDs and DVDs with suggestions for the formation of the mission spirit in children.
