Families Create Action Support Networks Family Power: Social Change Project

A visit to Australia (February 12-16, 1979) by Dr. Masamba ma Mpolo, Secretary of the Office of Family Education, World Council of Churches, Geneva, has stimulated great interest in the Family Power: Social Change project, which is part of the family ministries programme of the World Council of Churches.

The project is rooted in insights I find exciting — the belief that families need not just succumb to external pressures and become victims of outside forces; they need not wait for commercial interests, television and radio, newspapers and magazines, films and advertisements, patronizing and matronizing social service bodies to tell them what to do, what to think, what to buy, what value systems to uphold, what goals for living to accept. They can become more self-reliant, more liberated, less other directed, be makers of history. Fatalistic, hand-wringing despair can be replaced by courageous grappling with issues, in a spirit of hope. In line with the Old Testament prophets, families can both denounce evil elements involving injustice and manipulation, and can announce new possibilities for a more truly human society (see Paulo Freire, Cultural Action for Freedom, Penguin).