CCJP- Diocese of Chinhoyi mission is to ensure that people’s lives are transformed through a just and

peaceful society

Caritas Chinhoyi strives to achieve lasting improvements in the quality of life of deprived and vulnerable communities in the Diocese of Chinhoyi, through promoting, supporting, and sustaining the development of the whole human being as part of the evangelism mission of the church. The mission of Caritas is to make God’s love visible in the church.

• The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) is a social arm of the Catholic Church that is mandated to promote justice and peace in the diocese of Chinhoyi. The Commission has been in existence since 1972 and has been a respected force for social justice in Zimbabwe for nearly 40 years. With support and guidance from Church and secular partners, CCJP regularly engage thousands of community members of all religious backgrounds in activities that promote peaceful and meaningful interactions across the socio-economic and political divide.

   

  In line with CCJP’s strategic priorities which are civic education on governance related topics such as rights with responsibilities, constitutionalism, horizontal and vertical advocacy and lobby, social accountability, social mobility, gender responsive public services programming, tackling structural root causes of domestic violence, movement building, research and report writing, capacity enhancement for justice and peace actors, priests, religious leaders, traditional leaders and political leaders and raising awareness on democratic rights in Mashonaland Central and West provinces from the grassroots to the parliamentary level.

The Commission emphasize the use of innovation and integration to achieve maximum impact. CCJP structures are present from the smallest community known as outstation (grassroots), working to maintain peace throughout the country to the parliamentary level where it is advocating for policy changes.

The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) operation stretches in 9 civil districts in two provinces, namely Mashonaland West and Central. The Social Teachings of the Catholic Church (STC) are the basic foundation of the organization. The Commission works without regard to religion, race, gender or ethnicity. CCJP has vast experience in designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating programs through various community participatory approaches to foster long-term and sustainable programs that engage all stakeholders from the rights holders to government ministries. Community capacity strengthening is a key strategy for the commission as relevant skills and knowledge are shared among community members to spearhead the necessary changes that eradicate unjust social, economic and cultural norms that hinder development.

CCJP works in collaboration with other Catholic Church institutions which include the CARITAS, Education and Health commissions in delivering its mandate. The organisation also works with existing community-based structures from which a pool of volunteers have been trained and organised in different fields such as Human Rights defenders, election observers, social accountability monitoring female and male group and gender ambassadors, to cascade the interventions to peer community members.

In all its programming the Commission, mainstreams cross-cutting themes which include disability, children, elderly, gender, HIV/AIDS, protection and environment. Female participation takes centre stage of the Commission programming as women take up usually male dominated roles such as assuming leadership roles in local structures Ward Development Committees, Child Protection Committees.