Renato Kizito Sesana

Renato "Kizito" Sesana (born 1943) is an Italian Comboni missionary, journalist and humanitarian.

Early life

Commonly referred to as "Father Kizito", Renato Sesana was born in Lecco, Italy. In 1962, he graduated with a junior degree in mechanical engineering, and went to work at the famous Moto Guzzi factory in nearby Mandello del Lario.

Sesana entered the novitiate of the Comboni Missionaries in Gozzano, Italy, in 1964. He later studied theology for four years at Venegono Superiore and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1970. He assumed the name 'Kizito', after Saint Kizito (the youngest of the Uganda Martyrs, who was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1964).

In the early 1970s,Sesana worked for "Nigrizia", a prestigious Comboni magazine.He was appointed its editor between 1973 and 1975, during which period he began to travel around Africa, writing and taking pictures.

In 1975, Sesana studied English in the United States, living at the Holy Cross Parish in Los Angeles, California. He returned to Italy the following year, and in 1977 graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Padua,Italy. His thesis focussed on African Americans in the Catholic Church.

Missionary and Humanitarian Work in Africa

Father Kizito’s missionary work in Africa started when he was assigned to Zambia in 1977. He served in a rural parish for three years before moving to the capital, Lusaka. Assigned to a poor slum area called Bauleni, Father Kizito worked especially with the youth and started a lay community called Koinonia.

In February 1988, he was sent to Nairobi, Kenya, to set up the "New People", a Comboni magazine for Anglophone African countries.

Once in Nairobi, he started a lay community in Kenya, also called Koinonia, with a group of young men whose inspiration was the life of the early biblical Christians as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The Community members were from different professions and backgrounds, and they lived together sharing their dreams, successes and failures. Today, the Koinonia Community has about thirty members in Nairobi, and ten in Lusaka.

Koinonia Kenya was registered as a corporate body in 1996, after which it established various social enterprises to help improve the local society within which it is based. Its activities and social projects give priority on the marginalized in society, such as children in difficult circumstances – especially street children – as well as women and young people from poor backgrounds.

Apart from the Nairobi and Lusaka projects, the Community has since spread to the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, where a sister community, Koinonia Nuba, runs two primary schools and a teachers’ training college.

Beyond his missionary and humanitarian work, Father Kizito is an acclaimed journalist. He wrote a weekly column called “Father Kizito’s Notebook” from 1995 to 2001, in the Sunday edition of the Daily Nation, which is Kenya’s most widely read newspaper.

In 1999, the Episcopal Conference of Kenya instructed him to plan and set up Waumini Radio, a national Catholic FM station. The station began broadcasting in July 2003, and Father Kizito ran it until early 2006.

Father Kizito has also inspired and supported the establishment of Newsfromafrica.org, an electronic news bulletin that publishes articles written from the perspective of the African grassroots people in their struggle for freedom, dignity and justice.

Among other initiatives, he has helped set up Peacelink-Africa, a portal on African initiatives for peace, and The Big Issue Kenya, which is the country’s first street newspaper.

Currently, Father Kizito continues to actively support and promote the various Koinonia initiatives, especially the Community's street children rehabilitation projects in Nairobi and Lusaka, as well as the peace building activities of Africa Peace Point,a non-governmental organization established under Koinonia.

He also continues to write widely. He has so far authored 11 books and translated several others. In January 2008, he inaugurated a new blog called "A Life in Africa".

Awards

1997: Raul Follereau Award
2002: Vita Nova Prize

External links

*A Life in Africa:Fr. Renato Kizito Sesana’s blog http://kizito.blogsite.org/
*Koinonia Kenya Website http://www.koinoniakenya.org