A Capuchin-run music school and radio station in Central African Republic is bringing hope and the Gospel to young people in one of the poorest and most unstable countries in the world. Source: OSV News.
For years, the country has been ravaged by civil war, tribal conflicts, and a lack of prospects for young people. It was here that a Capuchin priest decided to start something that might have sounded too crazy to many – a music school.
Now, the school runs the only radio station in the region and seeks to build a concert hall for the children to perform at.
“Despite the war and constant killings in this country, we opened a music school,” Capuchin Fr Benedykt “Benek” Pączka, the school’s founder told OSV New.
He recalled the modest beginnings: a few rooms in a monastery in Bouar, a few instruments, and a great desire for children to hear a different world.
Recently, Fr Pączka launched a new project — Radio Siriri. “Siriri means ‘peace,” the Capuchin said.
It has an evangelisation purpose, but Fr Pączka said, “it also provides information about the rebellion, among other things.”
“Imagine that people buy small radios to listen to us when they go to work in the fields,” Fr Pączka said. “We Capuchins want to bring the Good News to people here in the same way that it has long been done in Europe and the United States – through the media. There is no television here, but there is radio – our radio,” he said.
When the recruitment for the music school was announced back in 2017, several hundred children applied. They wanted to play, learn, and escape from everyday life, where the sound of weapons was more frequent than laughter.
The music school quickly became more than just a place of learning, but a place of refuge.
“A few years ago, one of my students came and said he hadn’t eaten anything for two days. I thought my heart would break,” Fr Pączka said.
When asked why he came so late, the boy answered that he was ashamed. “That was the moment when I didn’t wait, I set up a canteen for all the children,” the Capuchin friar said.
Today, every child eats first before classes every day. “It’s like in the Gospel: Jesus showed us how to love, but to also feed first,” Fr Pączka said.
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Capuchin-run music school changes the region through culture in the Central African Republic (OSV News)
