As the Catholic church prepares for the Extraordinary Synod on Africa, to be held in Rome Oct. 4-25 on the theme “Justice, peace and reconciliation," the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns presents "Together with Africa: Celebrating hope."

This special project encourages the entire Maryknoll world, our friends, supporters and colleagues to pray and act in solidarity with the church in Africa during 2009 through:

• a monthly prayer based on the theme of the synod, “Justice, peace and reconciliation”
• a weekly Africa update to make Africa more visible, with a focus on the countries where Maryknoll has experience, as well as important trans-regional issues such as ecology, poverty, violent conflict, HIV and AIDS, the impact of U.S. policy on justice, peace and reconciliation
• a weekly story of hope from Africa
• important documents relating to the themes of solidarity, social justice, peace and reconciliation
• a weekly Africa-focused action alert that will encourage prayer, study and action over the course of a month to increase attention to Africa on a regular basis 

These items will be posted on our "Together with Africa: Celebrating hope" page on our website, and also shared through a weekly email.

To sign up for this weekly email, please use this link.

We hope you will join us in this effort by sharing any ideas or content you would like to contribute to the website, including prayers, articles, stories of hope and your own reflections on solidarity with Africa. Contact Marie Dennis for more information on this project, mdennis@maryknoll.org