Josephine Olagunju: Nigeria Associate
Born on March 18, 1954 in Lagos, Nigeria and of the same citizenship, Sister Josephine studied at Regina Mundi Institute, Rome, affiliate school of the Gregorian University from where she got a Masters degree in Religious Sciences.
A member of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus (www.shcj.org) for almost thirty years, and of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) twenty, Josephine has worked as facilitator and director at Centre for Renewal Jos, Nigeria for six years before going to Chad in 1992 where she worked for five and a half years as director of a radio and television production centre for the Archdiocese of N’Djamena, at the same time that she was the national coordinator for communications for the Episcopal Conference of Chad. She then initiated and ran for two years a media education program whose main goal was to provide an alternative to violence-inducing films in an already volatile socio-political environment.
On her election unto the leadership team of her religious institute in 1998, Josephine served for six years, resident in Rome from where she visited the fourteen countries (on four continents) where her religious institute has missions. While in this ministry, she was on the Executive Committees of the Africa-Europe Faith and Justice Network (www.aefjn.org) and the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Commission of the International Unions of Superiors General. These two provided opportunities for the organization of and involvement in peace actions in Rome and through the aefjn secretariat based in Belgium. Josephine is currently working at Centre for Renewal to which she returned in September 2005. There she introduced the From Violence to Wholeness Program (FVTW) to Nigeria through the Centre which used it as its peace building program focus for its Silver Jubilee in 2005/06.
Josephine is an experienced facilitator, retreat and spiritual director, mediator and media educator. She is interested in establishing the FVTW program in Nigeria. To this end she runs workshops, adapted to different strata of society, and has already trained several experienced teachers as facilitators. Funds permitting more will be trained to enable the further diffusion of the program in the Nigerian context where the need to cultivate the culture of active non-violence is very great indeed.
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