Interview with Sr Claire Lilliane Obone Mebalet, Superior General of the Sisters of Saint Mary of Gabon, during the joint UISG-USG meeting (November 22-24, 2023).

As a challenge, it's openness, the hope of openness, of communion... to walk together as a church, with each other and not alone.

So it is a common walk of brothers and sisters, the hope that dwells in our hearts and the hope raised by the Synod; these are new projects, bringing joy to the poorest and the most vulnerable. We have cases of abandoned people and street children who need to be accompanied, who need to be given a smile, who need to be given back the joy of living and human dignity in society!

The collaboration between the two unions, the UISG and the USG, is a good initiative so far as these two organizations are there to promote the consecrated life in the world: to reflect together, to take concrete actions that would benefit the whole of the consecrated life in the world.

And for me, coming from Africa, it's barrier-free... and we're all the beneficiaries of everything that's being done, and this is a new initiative to be encouraged and developed in the future.