The Gaborone Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church will on March 1 officially open its state-of-the-art P100m Ave Maria Pastoral center. The center comprises 96 rooms, four conference rooms, a chapel and a kitchen.
Situated to the west of Botho University and designed by Tlhole Holdings, the three-storey centre was Bishop Valentine Seane’s idea. Catholic members contributed around P2.6m, with the rest of the construction cost of over P40m coming from the Diocese office.
The Diocese Director for media, Fr William Selourm Horlu said the center would be the hub of the Catholic Church’s training and information dissemination programmes.
“It will be the place of convergence of all the different individuals, parishes and groups in the diocese of Gaborone and beyond,” he said.
On the objectives of coming up with such a project, he said all 23 parishes in the Gaborone Diocese and institutions will have equal opportunity and access to undertake church-based programmes and activities on their own ground.
The centre is also meant to promote integral development through formative and informative pastoral sharing.
Among activities to be carried out at the centre are training workshops for the youth, vocational training workshops for women, counseling for adolescents, youth and abused children and women.
It will further act as an ecumenical gathering for churches, spiritual retreat for groups and churches.
He said their expectations as the church are that there will be accessibility to and collaboration with partnering Non Governmental Organisations and Faith Based Organisations activities.
“There will be growth in imparting knowledge and empowerment of church members and leaders. Facilities will further be available for neighboring diocese and countries to hold conferences and workshops,” said Fr William Horlu.
Charges for utilising the facility have not yet been finalised. Though it is clear that the facility is going to create employment, the number of employment opportunities that are to be created once it is operational was unknown at the time of going to press.
“The church exists to evangelise through the Word of God and action. Since the church does not exist for the faithful alone, but also for the public in which it exists, we have built that project to everybody’d disposal,” said Fr William.
