In conjunction with World Water Day on March 22, the Reconciliation with Creation taskforce in Asia Pacific conference has called for Jesuits and collaborators to be more aware of our responsibility to the world that God created. The need to focus on water is clear as 2013 has also been declared by the United Nations as the Year of Water Cooperation.
This year, 167 children, many from ethnic minority tribes in the hills of northern Thailand, will get help with their education costs from the Seven Fountains Scholarship Programme.
An academic in charge of a large-scale construction project? Australian Jesuit Fr Quyen Vu SJ doesn’t understand how it happened either. “Yes, I laugh about my new role sometimes. I am now immersed in building construction,” he says.
This eight-hectare site in the Kasait in Timor-Leste is being transformed into the new St Ignatius of Loyola Kasait under Fr Quyen’s watch as the vice-principal of the new Jesuit school.
Plans for a Jesuit Liberal Arts College (JLAC) in Hong Kong reached a new level in January with the convening of a two-day inaugural College Board of Trustees meeting. The trustees gathered in Hong Kong to discuss the academic and strategic planning of the JLAC and visit the Queen’s Hill site, where the Jesuits hope to locate the university.
The Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat has released “Promotio Iustitiae no.110”, a document dedicated to the Global Ignatian Advocacy Networks, which are centred on five areas – Ecology, Right to Education, Management of Natural Resources and Minerals, Migration, and Peace and Human Rights. “Promotio Iustitiae no.110” provides an introduction to the networks, a theological grounding for Ignatian advocacy, a possible model of collaboration, and position documents on each network, including objectives, and plans for future action.
If the JCAP major superiors needed a reminder of the extent of and differences in our Conference, the last two locations for our biannual meeting certainly provided that. The island Republic of Palau, population 20,600, is a vastly different locale from that of our previous assembly held last July in Macau, a part of China, population over 1.4 billion.
Not all children look forward to the first day of school, but for the 74 first students of Colégio Santo Inácio de Loiolá, January 15 was a much-anticipated day. Nearly all of them arrived one hour before the school day began at 8.30am.
The Jesuit Conference Asia Pacific (JCAP) continues to seek venues to strengthen reflection, and network through participation in formation programmes, and institutional and province reviews. In Asia Pacific, there are continuous challenges of social and environmental injustice, limited basic education for the poor, and the needed revision of values in a culture of consumerism.
The Jesuits and partners in Cambodia continue to discern the way forward in education. In October, four educators from the various parts of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific visited Cambodia as part of the Cambodian Mission’s Preparatory Planning Mission (PPM) team. The local members of the PPM included three Jesuits, Frs OH Indon and Gabby Lamug-Nanawa and Br Ham Toeun, and two partners, Sr Ljudmila Anzic (Salesians) and Br Terry Heinrich (Marists).
The Jesuits of the New York Province have produced a six-part video series that recounts their history of service to the people of Micronesia and introduces some of the Jesuit works and apostolates there.
The Jesuits primarily serve in the parishes and schools in the states of Yap and Chuuk. Micronesia is part of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific.