At the Official opening of the new SMA Justice and Peace Office in Wilton, Cork on Thursday 28th`of October Fr Bill Kennedy SMA lit a candle to symbolise the work of the Office which aims at establish peace through justice.  

Commenting on the occasion Fr O’Driscoll the SMA Provincial Leader said:  “this new resource is a mark of the Society of African Missions commitment to promoting the Gospel-based response elaborated in Catholic Social Teaching. This office will serve as a resource for members of the SMA, schools, parishes, faith and justice programes. It will research issues affecting not only Africa but also concerns emerging in a multicultural society here in Ireland.” 

In a presentation of the work of the Office Fr Angelo Lafferty and Mr Gerry Forde outlined the practical work being done to support this aim through research, education, awareness raising, advocacy and pastoral support for African immigrants. Cois Tine is one of the projects run by the SMA Justice Office. Its focus is on providing practical pastoral support to African immigrants(see article “What does Cois Tine do" below) This takes form of training, counselling, and organisational support, the provision of premises, spiritual direction and social activities.

More recently, Cois Tine has, in the course of its work come into contact with the issues of trafficking, witchcraft HIV/Aids.  At present is engaged in researching these issues with a view to publishing information on our website and also in preparation for training courses that will be delivered in 2011.

In the past year Cois Tine has been instrumental in the development of the new Cork Integration Forum, recently launched by the Minister for Integration Mary White TD.  This is an umbrella group that at present represents twenty five immigrant, NGO and statutory groups.  Ten of these groups are African. 

Cois Tine has also been closely involved in the planning development and implementation of the Cork City Integration Strategy.  This took the very practical approach of identifying forty two actions aimed at making it easier for immigrants to be included in the life of the City and which specified a lead agency responsible for implementing the action.  Almost all have completed and now Cois Tine is involved in planning the next phase of the strategy. At present Cois Tine is also running a comprehensive course on practical counselling skills relevant to a multicultural Ireland.  .  All of these activities aim to provide practical pastoral support to African immigrants and to facilitate their integration into our community.