Appointment of Brother Visitor – District of Central Africa

Brother Superior General has appointed Emmanuel Mboua as Visitor ‘pro tempore’ from 6 July 2022 to 1 July 2025.

Brother Emmanuel was born on 3 October 1965 in eastern Cameroon. After the primary education he received at Saint Martin’s School, he entered Saint Joseph’s School in Diang, where he met the Brothers of the Christian Schools. In 1985 he began his religious formation; he made his first vows in June 1988. He pronounced his final vows in August 2002.

Brother Emmanuel has worked as a secondary school teacher and as an animator in rural development projects. In 2008, he was appointed as member of the CELAF Institute in Abidjan. In addition to teaching Moral Theology at CELAF and ICAO/UCAO, he successively held the positions of bursar, director of CAFOP and director general of the CELAF Institute. From 2010 to 2015, he was director of the Good Shepherd community, which hosted Brothers studying for their Master’s degree at the CELAF Institute.

In 2015, he joined back his District as director of the La Salle Technical Institute in Douala.

Prior to his appointment as Visitor ‘pro tempore’ he has served as Director General of the La Salle Technical Institute and Director of the Centre for Vocational and Continuing Education.

Brother Emmanuel Mboua also holds a doctorate in Philosophy (Christian ethics) from Saint Paul University in Ottawa. He also holds a Master’s degree in Theological Ethics and a degree in Pastoral Theology. As a researcher, he has published five books on Ethics and Bioethics.

Congratulations Brother Emmanuel!

In 1948, the first Lasallian Brothers arrived in Cameroon from Canada. The District of Douala was created on 27 April 1955, breaking away from the District of Quebec. In 1971, the Brothers from the District of Holland, who had arrived in the diocese of Doumé (East Cameroon) in 1958, began a process of integration into the District of Douala which ended in 1982.

The general policy of restructuring recommended by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, proposed that Equatorial Guinea (which previously belonged to the Central District of Spain) become part of the Douala District, to ensure the vitality of the Districts, and also for cultural, geographical and politico-economic reasons.

This process culminated in 2013 with the ratification, by Brother Superior General and his Council, of the Act of Union signed in Ebolowa, Cameroon, by the Capitulant Brothers present at the Extraordinary Chapter of 26 and 27 October 2013, thus giving birth to the District of Central Africa. The District of Central Africa currently includes 3 countries: Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. The Brothers of the Christian Schools have thus been recognised in these countries as an ‘Association with Religious Purposes’.

The District of Central Africa is now composed of 9 communities and has 35 Brothers, all committed to the Lasallian educational mission. There are 15 educational ministries (from kindergartens to primary schools, through secondary schools, high schools, basic education centres, vocational training centres and a technical institute, with a total of 8,934 learners, apprentices and students, supervised by 797 Lasallian educators.