The Executive Committee of SID voted to endorse a concept presented by Claude Richli, associate publisher of Adventist World and Adventist Review magazines to launch a new edition of the international magazine to empower young people in Africa.
The new edition is to be designed in Africa to better reflect local tastes and will feature local content and articles for young people in addition to the articles that have made Adventist World into a globally acclaimed publication.
The new magazine will be marketed to the public at large under a neutral banner at a very affordable price to enable young people and Pathfinder clubs to use it as a monthly fundraiser to promote their activities and to earn money for themselves to help with school fees and other necessities. It will first and foremost serve as a missionary magazine, empowering young people to witness to their community about the church’s teachings, its educational and humanitarian actions around the world.
A partnership with the Hope Channel and Adventist World Radio will ensure that regular advertising will take place on the airwaves on behalf of the Youth Department and the magazine, thus raising the awareness of the public at large and preparing the ground for effective distribution. In return, the back page of the magazine will be used to advertise Adventist World Radio and the Hope Channel. According to Claude Richli, “we are putting building blocks in place to create powerful media synergies, to establish the name of the Church among the public and to give it a face through our Pathfinders in their uniforms.”
Pastor Busi Khumalo, Youth Ministries Director for the SID supports this project for these reasons:
- Since local content and youth-friendly articles will be incorporated in the envisaged magazine, this will encourage youth to read pertinent articles that will inform them about current events happening around the world in the SDA church.
- Youth will be challenged to sell the magazines. As they sell the magazines they will earn some money and this will expose them to gaining valuable Literature Evangelism skills, which we so desire for our youth to have. At the moment most of our youth are unemployed and have no money to further their studies. Idleness exposes our youth to divers deviant behaviours. Thus this initiative will help us to address these maladies.
- By selling and distributing the magazines, youth will be helping to hasten the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The program is to be implemented step by step in the countries comprising SID beginning in 2013. Adventist World¸ is the official magazine of the World Church, presently distributed to over 150 countries including into SID, in 8 languages. The magazine’s headquarters are in in Seoul, South Korea and Silver Spring, Maryland.
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