Session LEAD

What is it?

Session LEAD is a summer school for young people between the ages of 20 and 30 years old. At this summer school, students listen and learn from stories that Belgian and European men and women tell about their personal and professional lives. We invite professionals to be speakers from many different careers – social, political, religious and economic – and chose them because they have shown an ability to bring together their Catholic values and their professional interests into a promising and rewarding career. In this way, they are great role models to our students.

The objective of Session LEAD is to inspire our youth participants to be tomorrow’s leaders who live and work in accordance with our Catholic beliefs. To achieve this goal, we sponsor several speeches by today’s leaders for our students, allow space for open conversation, guide students as the develop their faith, and provide opportunities for students to meet and connect with other young Belgian Christians.

How does it help?

Our project aims to share experiences from high profile people involved in all fields of our society such as politics, entrepreneurship, hospitality, media, and missionary. All of our lecturers are kindly asked to give a personal testimony about how they achieved to match faith and commitment throughout their life and work experience. These testimonies are demonstrations on how Christians can lead and inspire their colleagues through their career while also living our fully their Christian faith and values.

Why is it important?

It seems that religious groups are not as appealing to people nowadays and thus there is a need for an initiative that guides young people as they develop their Christian spirituality and understanding of essential Christian values so that they make service-oriented and moral choices. Session LEAD aims to prove that there is a place and need for spirituality and Christianity in the professional field. Our chose speakers are proof of this and are examples of how young people can live as Christians who show respect, charity and fraternity while also achieving in their career.

How did it start

The initiative was launched after the World Youth Day 2013 in Rio. It took much inspiration from the French initiative “Acteurs d’avenir.”

Benefits

We welcome young people from all over the country who are willing to receive guidance on how to live and work in accordance with their Christian faith and values faith and be succesfull in all parts of their life.

Means and funding

Since the beginning, this initiative has been mostly supported through private donations.

Learn more

Please visit our website for more information on the goals of our initiative and our work.

Countries involved

“Acteurs d’avenir” is the (original) French version of this project.

How to start?

It would only take a small group of motivated individuals who have some training and experience working with pre-existing initiatives. It would also require some funding from the beginning in order to welcome participants at an affordable joining fee.