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Added by Jopie, at 01 January 2020
Description
Inter School Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship (IS/IVCF) was first introduced to the Caribbean in 1948, when a staff worker from Canada. Miss Cathy Nicoll, visited Jamaica and helped in starting Inter School Christian Fellowship (ISCF) groups in six schools, and also advised undergraduates of the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) on the formation of a Bible study group. She returned four years later and established the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF)
group on the University campus. After a few years of consolidation of the Movement in Jamaica, it was introduced to the rest of the Caribbean; Trinidad, Guyana and then the rest of countries. There are established IS/IVCF ministries in Antigua, Barbados, Belize, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the
Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Pioneer work to establish a movement in Dominica took place in 2008.
The rich work in the French Caribbean was consolidated during the 1980’s. The student movement of Guadeloupe started officially with a University Campus group during the academic year 1986/1987. The previous summer students from the GBU (Group Biblique Universitaire) traveled to Guadeloupe to encourage Christians to mobilize and witness on their campus. Student witness spread powerfully and reached many other institutions.
In spite of the reinforcement of French law about secularism where schools are supposed be religion free zones, the work is presently on the university campus and in about 40% of the high schools. AALECG is the umbrella organization coordinating both university and high school work.
In Martinique the ministry officially begun in 1983, when a pastor’s wife and another local pastor who had heard of and experienced the GBU in France went back to Martinique and encouraged students of the “University Antilles-Guyane”
to start a group on their campus. First, six students started meetings in the dormitories of Schoelcher campus. The following year three people converted to the Lord through small group Bible studies and open discussions round the Bible. Later the work spread to the high schools which is known as the CBL (Club Bibliques Lyceens).
In French Guiana, the ministry started with a two-week missionary trip of students from Martinique and Guadeloupe.
This trip was particularly important because not only it helped to launch the ministry among students in French Guiana, but it was the sign of a new commitment for pioneer work from two Francophone movements which were the result of a long term struggle to establish themselves. Between 1996 and 1997, the first group started in a high school in the town of Kourou. The work then spread to the other high schools and universities of the country. Today the GBU is present in
most of the school and university institutions of French Guiana.
The GBU in Haiti began in the 1960s when an American, Wayne Bragg, made an exploratory visit to Haiti . He met a group of young medical students who, without having heard of the Groupes Bibliques Universitaires, had a desire to speak of their faith to their fellow students. From this meeting the Haitian GBU was born (now renamed as GBEUH).
Student ministry in Suriname was initiated in 1977 by students of the VOJ and VOS schools and is known as “The Jesus Students (JS)”. This work covers both the high schools and tertiary institutions of the country.
At the global level IS/IVCF, GBU and the Jesus Students which all constitute the Caribbean Fellowship of Evangelical Students (CARIFES) are part of a body of over 143 member movements on every continent, united under the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), headquartered in London. It is essentially a movement in which students reach students for Christ, with the motto “to know Christ and to make Him known”.
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