Core Identity

Bangladesh Catholic Students’ Movement, popularly known as BCSM is a movement for College and University going Catholic students in Bangladesh. This movement was started in Bangladesh in the year 1991 and is being continued. BCSM is inspired by the IMCS (International Movement of Catholic Students) and is affiliated with Bangladesh Episcopal Commission for Youth. At present, it exists in 8 Dioceses of Bangladesh and has become a center for the youths of Bangladesh. BCSM Celebrated its Silver Jubilee in 2016. Since its inception in 1991, BCSM has maintained a core identity that is still present in our movement today as we try to address the new challenges facing us. The document “Toward a Re-Definition of the Movement” from the 1975 IMCS Inter-federal Assembly pointed to three main realities in our core identity which are still valid today.

1. Student Movement
   The constituency of BCSM has been made up of diocesan activities of Catholic church students studying in higher secondary, graduation, and post-graduation level. At the heart of the constituency have always been, however, the students themselves. As a student movement, BCSM is concerned with the student and the role of education as a whole. This concern is not limited to the classroom but includes all dimensions of student life (including social, spiritual, physical, and familial). This compels us to work with other student movements and organizations dealing with education at the local and international levels (including student organizations of other faiths and denominations and other civil society organizations). In this work, we are actively involved in the work of IMCS. As a student movement, we are not only concerned with student issues but seek to raise awareness and action among students to broader issues of social justice. In this reality, we recognize that we are not apart from society and are not just the future of society but we are an active part of it today with a special responsibility as students to question and analyze the problems of society.
   2. Church Movement
   A second element of the identity of BCSM is its role as a Church Movement at the unit, diocesan, and national level. As the IMCS International Team pointed out in 1987 with the occasion of the Synod on the Laity, IMCS is not only a Church Movement but is ”the Church in movement.”[1] As an international lay movement IMCS is recognized by the Pontifical Council for the Laity and by the Secretariat of State of the Holy See (Vatican). As an International Catholic Organization, IMCS can have a strong voice for its members within the global Church. Based on it at the national level BCSM is recognized by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh (CBCB). At the root level, we have developed strong relationships with the regional Church body. The 1971 reflection on IMCS’s identity clearly stated IMCS’s dual mission as a Church movement: “We also want the Church to be present in the student milieu, and the student milieu within the Church.” We, as IMCS Bangladesh follow the same ideology.
   In addition to promoting ecumenical dialogue, BCSM believes that the promotion of inter-religious dialogue among students and student groups is a central part of its mission.
2. International Movement
   Since its very beginning, IMCS has taken its international identity seriously, helping its members to develop a global perspective of their reality, and to enable them to have a voice and impact in the international arena. The international dimension of our movement offers us a chance to promote solidarity, to share our vision, and to undertake common actions. IMCS believes that it is through this dialogue between cultures that we understand the universality of the message of the Gospel and we can help build peace in the world.
   Based in the student and Catholic perspective, IMCS has used its international identity to speak out on behalf of its members and in solidarity with the oppressed in many important forums including the League of Nations and then with the United Nations and UNESCO. Under the common name of Pax Romana, IMCS and ICMICA advocate in these forums as a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the UN ECOSOC. Today IMCS is one of the leading youth NGOs working with the UN and has played an active role in many of the major UN Conferences in the past 10 years.
   At the moment IMCS – Pax Romana is actively present in about 80 countries throughout the world. These national groups make up the core of the IMCS membership. Each national group has a different name, structure, and program. The federated structure of IMCS allows each national movement, federation, association, etc. to have the autonomy to maintain and develop its own identity to meet the local realities they face, and together at the regional and international levels to face common global challenges and build a common vision.
   The diverse regional structures of IMCS which have developed in recent decades provide invaluable space for the national movements to connect at the regional levels and to reflect and take action on common issues. At the same time, they promote the global reality and identity of IMCS as a whole.
   BCSM being a member of IMCS is connected to every part of it.
   4.Educational Movement
   BCSM accompanies the progressive growth process of involvement and experience of faith of each member of the movement, in a comprehensive way and relation with the whole life, in the perspective of continuity which does not stop at the end of studies but goes on even more in professional life.