ASEC News

CARA Receives Grant to Host African Sisters For Research Fellowship in the USA

African Sisters Education Collaborative (ASEC)

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University receives a grant to conduct four studies of women religious and host a visiting scholar.

In 2015-2016, ASEC entered into an agreement with Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University to bring African sisters to the U.S. for a Visiting Scholar Fellowship. CARA is a national, nonprofit research center that conducts social scientific studies about the Catholic Church. The chosen sister will work and study with CARA to advance their research skills.  ASEC is partnered with CARA to recruitment the sister scholars and engage them in research opportunities, including over one week at its Scranton, PA, office.

CARA will use a $240,000 grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to perform the research and host the scholar. Sr. Jane Wakahiu, former ASEC Executive Director, is quoted in the article saying that partnership is the first step in creating an institute to study religious life in Africa, similar to CARA's work in the United States. Sr. Jane told GSR,

"ASEC graduates are serving 26 million people today," Wakahiu said. "But our data gathering practices are inadequate and data is essential to measuring impact. ...We want to have a conversation, to continue researching the type of the service [sisters] need to administer, not only to collect the data, but to understand it in relation to other congregations within the country and continent." 

Sr. Jane also said one possible area for the sister researcher to explore is how the well-documented membership decline among U.S. congregations can help African congregations understand how to keep their numbers more stable and increase the vitality of congregations throughout Africa into the future.

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This article is addressing the following UN Sustainable Development Goal(s):

Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Sr. Jane Wakahiu, LSOSF, Ph.D.
ASEC Board Member
Profiled in article  

Amy Fedele

Amy Fedele
Author
Former ASEC Media & Communications Manager - USA  

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