Young adults protest WCC assembly printable version mail article to

Porto Alegre/Brazil, 22.02.2006/DisciplesWorld/APD

The young adult stewards working at the ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) staged a protest on the floor of the plenary hall on February 20 claiming that the voice of young adults has been silenced.

Called the “youth assembly” by WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia in the months leading up to the event, this assembly is anything but, say the stewards. Instead, a number of the young people feel ignored, overlooked, even mistreated by the adult delegates and event organizers.

Stewards are young adults who were sent by their churches to assist the event planners with ushering and other duties.

In a statement accompanying the protest, stewards claim that the assembly, “Relies heavily on the labour and presence of stewards and mutirao participants yet refuses to recognize the voices and true abilities of both these groups of young adults.”

At the opening of the Feb. 20 plenary, about 100 young adults marched into the hall wearing scarves over their mouths symbolizing the denial of their right to speak. Others held placards reading, “We are the church of today, not just of the future.”

Three events lead to the protest

First, the 250 young adult stewards, delegates and visitors who gathered February 11-13, for a "Youth Pre-Assembly Event," heard Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the WCC, raise the prospect of a designated youth president of the WCC. Within a few days, the group put forward a name for consideration. However, by Sunday night, February 19, it became clear that the assembly leadership would not grant the request.

That evening, Kobia and Moderator Aram I met with the young adult delegates to deliver the news, but only after asking the stewards to leave the room. Sara Critchfield, a young adult Disciples delegate, was disappointed that Kobia and Aram I dismissed her colleagues. She was also troubled that the delegates didn’t protest on the spot. “We were all together in the pre-assembly event and then we were divided. We should’ve stood up in that meeting and said, ‘We do ecumenism this way – the stewards stay.’”

On February 20, things got worse. The first proposal of the WCC’s nominating committee included only 15 percent young adults of the 150 individuals nominated to serve on the central committee. The central committee conducts the business of the WCC between assemblies.

A recent WCC guideline sets a goal for 25 percent participation of young adults on the central committee. But only 14 percent of the 214 names submitted by member churches were young adults. Committee moderator, Bernice Jackson Powell said, “We did the best we could with what was submitted to us.”

Young adult Disciple Bethany Lowery was disappointed but not surprised that young adults did not get 25 percent of the nominations to central committee. “It’s a common tendency to have adults talk about wanting young people’s involvement, but not be willing to give up their own space to make it happen,” she said.

Lowery noted, however, that Disciples “stands behind their youth commitment.” Fifteen of the 36 Disciples attending this WCC assembly are young adults.

The protesters sat quietly during Monday’s session with scarves around their mouths and signs saying, "25%!"

Additional concerns were shared in a printed statement distributed to media by Miriam Shastri of Malaysia. The statement asserts that stewards have been treated with disrespect by some delegates, and that young adult participation in plenary sessions has been "designed to show off young adult presence rather than involve young adults in content input."

At the end of Monday’s session, Vice Moderator Marion Best thanked the protestors for not disrupting the proceedings and acknowledged that WCC leadership raised expectations they could not meet.

United again, making some progress

By Tuesday morning (February 21), the delegates and stewards were repairing their own divided ranks by organizing together to salvage what they could from the nominations outcome. They decided to stand behind a delegates’ proposal already making its way through to the assembly floor.

A group of young adult delegates, informally called the Youth Contribution Committee, presented a proposal to Kobia that would create a special body to "facilitate youth contribution to the WCC." The proposal does not make specific demands about young adult participation, but rather suggests ways in which such a body could strengthen communication and encourage “youth main-streaming” throughout the life of the WCC.

Because the proposal came late in the proceedings, it was sent via the business committee to the program guidelines committee which then passed it off to the policy and reference committee which will report on it Wednesday morning.

Young adult delegates also decided to put the consensus model of decision-making to work for them. When the moment comes, they will register their dissent on the slate of nominations to central committee by raising their blue cards. Their opposition will be included in the record even though they will not stop the consensus.

The now united delegates and stewards are still wondering whether to demand the removal of the label “Youth Assembly” from the meeting, and how they might incite the delegates to commit to 20 percent representation of young adults at the next WCC assembly.

Vy Nyugen, a young adult Disciple ministerial student from the University of Chicago Divinity School, encouraged the group of delegates and stewards to stay focused on the spiritual aspect of the assembly. He said, “The demands focus on the business of the assembly. Let’s focus on the spiritual hurt that we’ve experienced and share that with the leadership.”

New nominations report

Meanwhile, the nominations committee went back to work on Tuesday morning, (February 21). even though the committee did not receive any additional young adult nominations. Instead, the committee removed the identification of one woman as a young adult because she was over the age of 30 (WCC defines youth as people between the ages of 18 and 30).

Consequently, when the nominations committee brought their follow-up report to the assembly on Tuesday afternoon, the number of young adult delegates had decreased by one. Jackson said, “The committee is deeply disappointed in this outcome.”

During the Tuesday, February 20 session, it was the adult delegates who stood up for the young people. McKinley Young, a bishop with the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the U.S., acknowledge a “deep longing among the churches for the inclusion of young people.” Sally Dyck of the United Methodist Church (UMC) in the U.S. asked the assembly to reconsider the idea of adding a designated youth president to the WCC.

A Lutheran young adult delegate from the U.S., Kathryn Lohre, pleaded with the assembly to reject the slate for the central committee until the regions and confessions improve their recommendations.

Surprisingly, Tuesday’s floor debate was cut short when one delegate noted a potential conflict with the WCC constitution unrelated to the question of young adult participation. The nominating committee will report again February 22. Meanwhile, the galvanized young adults may retool their response in light of the day’s developments. [Editor: By Verity A. Jones for DisciplesWorld]

(7'430 Chars)