'Mary got ready and hurried’ is the slogan for the XXII International Charity And Volunteering Conference of the UCAM. The first conferences and round tables were held today in the assembly hall of the Los Jerónimos Campus, where the work of missionaries and volunteers has been praised. Antonio Alcaraz, UCAM Vice-Rector of University Outreach, highlighted some of the key features of this year's edition at the opening ceremony: ‘Our reflection on social development and the work of young people includes the World Youth Days, which this year will be held in Lisbon’.

In the first round table, on the role of missionaries, Ignacio Gamboa Gil de Solá, Episcopal Delegate for Missions of the Diocese of Cartagena, recalled that his main objective is to ‘reposition the missionary work as bearer of the good news of the Gospel not only from a social but also from a spiritual point of view’. He added that there are more than a hundred missionaries from Murcia spread throughout the world, especially in Latin America and Africa, and that the best way to support them is ‘to pray for them, by making donations and organising aid campaigns in the parishes as well as doing missionary work here, telling people about the work they do to awaken new vocations’.

The role of young people, specifically university students, was the main theme of the second round table, in which some of the volunteering initiatives taking place at UCAM were discussed – participants were reminded that associations need help to continue their social work. Students and teachers participated in this round table and shared their experiences of working for others. As for the work of the Universidad Católica, Antonio Alcaraz recalled that ‘we carry out regional and international voluntary work. We have implemented direct aid actions in Peru, Cuba, Uganda and Kenya, and more recently in Ukraine, Turkey and Syria.