I remember my first visit to the Klong Prem Prison Hospital with Father Olivier in April 2009 (two months before I started full time Prison Ministry that June). We approached each prisoner patient and gave him a few things such as toiletry articles and cookies. I thought we were going too fast and wondered how we could do better.
Monsignor Enrique Figaredo Alvargonzales recently celebrated his 10th anniversary as head of the Battambang apostolic prefecture.
However, even before his installation, he had been working with Cambodians, particularly those with disabilities, as early as 1985 through the Jesuit Refugee Service in Thailand.
Australian Catholic University (ACU) intends to offer the Diploma in Liberal Studies to a new cohort of refugee students on the Thai- Burma border in 2010-2011. Coordinator, Duncan MacLaren, visited Thailand in February 2010, partly to tutor on the Third World Politics unit offered online by Fairfield University, Connecticut, partly to set up interviews to select a new cohort of students starting in late September 2010. The refugee students may now be joined by another important group among ‘people on the move’ – migrants, both legal and illegal.
Covering children’s basic needs in housing and nutrition is a challenge we face every day. Having a basic and balanced nutrition and growing up in a stable and loving home is but a dream to many children. This is our everyday story.
Jesuit Refugee Service Cambodia reports that the International Convention on Cluster Munitions has now been ratified by 30 countries, which means that it will become binding international law on 1 September 2010. The director of JRS Cambodia, Sister Denise Coghlan, had been lobbying tirelessly governments as part of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC). (Source: Headlines 2010/02 News from the Jesuit Social Apostolate)
BANGKOK (UCAN) – The new head of the Jesuit ministry for foreign prisoners in Thailand, says 20 years of devotion to foreign migrants and refugees has been a joy and not been wasted.
Vilaiwan Phokthavi, 57, could have followed a lucrative career as an accountant with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand after graduating from the prestigious Chulalongkorn University, but decided instead to join the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).
10th Meeting of the Prefecture of Battambang
Siem Reap, October 20-22, 2009
Our life is full of experiences that spin and interweave, making up realities of life completely unsuspected, exceeding many times our dreams and expectations. The strength of life and the faithfulness of God in his love with his people is manifested with extreme clarity. This is our experience in Cambodia.
Fr David Yen (CHN), director of Fu Jen Catholic University Service-Learning Centre in Taipei reports that a group of students and teachers from the University participated in a service trip to work in the houses for the dying in Kolkata, India that were founded by Blessed Mother Teresa. In fact, for a number of years, the Catholic University in Taiwan has been organizing yearly service trips visiting such places as India, Mongolia, Cambodia and parts of Taiwan where those most in need live. These missionary experiences of charity are aimed at help
Fr Jerry Martinson (CHN) reflects on the subtleties of learning and integrating into a different culture as a Catholic television program producer. Read more. . .
The annual Alumni Homecoming was held this year in the afternoon of October 7. Months before this, invitations were sent mostly to the alumni and friends who are based all over the Philippines. For this year’s highlight, Sr.