Banteay Prieb, a Jesuit vocational training centre in Cambodia, is launching an education program for people with intellectual disabilities next month. The program, which begins with 11 students, builds on the centre’s 23 years of experience serving people with physical disabilities as a result of war, land mines, polio and accidents.
Indian Jesuit Fr Alexis Prem Kumar SJ has been released by the Taliban after eight months in captivity. Fr Prem had worked for three years as Afghanistan country director for Jesuit Refugee Service in Herat province when he was abducted by gunmen in June last year.
There is an increasing focus on disaster preparedness in the Philippines, although this is happening at different levels. The general public is learning how to use the available technologies for monitoring hazards and to understand the language used. Many communities are also focused on evacuation strategies and on identifying safe centres that can be used in the event of a disaster.
The Jesuits in Cambodia have proposed a fast from pollution this Lent. Why pollution? Their response is that “Pollution weakens our bodies and makes us vulnerable to many diseases such as diarrhoea, chest infections, cancers, respiratory and heart diseases. And the people most likely to be affected first are the poor, due to their already limited access to clean water, clean food and clean air. The poor suffer first.”
In support of this, they provide the following facts:
At Kanyintabin village, a community nestled on the bank of the vast Pyamalaw River, Jesuit Scholastic Cyril Nay Myo Htet, better known as Phocho, sat down with a group of farmers on a hot December afternoon, a mug of sweetened instant coffee in his hand. This was the time of the year when they harvested the yields of their toil and sweat.
Jesuit Refugee Service Australia has opened a new drop-in centre to address a lack of asylum seeker services in Western Sydney. The project is the result of a needs assessment undertaken by JRS in 2014, which found that the region is home to New South Wales’ second-largest group of asylum seekers arriving by boat and living on bridging visas.
A global movement of Catholics working together on climate issues was launched on January 14 with a statement presented to Pope Francis during his papal visit to the Philippines.
Resistance to the construction of a naval base at Gangjeong on Jeju Island, South Korea continues although the base is already under construction. The Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes are a UNESCO World Heritage site. The most recent significant effort was the Gangjeong Peace Conference and Peace Festival organized by the Jesuit Research Centre for Advocacy and Solidarity (JAS) at the Seoguipo Catholic Parish and Gangjeong Villag
The Jesuit-run University of San Francisco has been running an alternative study abroad program based in Metro Manila, the Philippines. Casa Bayanihan is a semester-long program rooted in the Jesuit tradition, conceived initially for undergraduates in Jesuit universities in the United States.
Although Typhoon Hagupit – known as Ruby in the Philippines – is reported to have taken only a handful of lives, for thousands of people in the country, it was still a sort of repeat of Typhoon Haiyan, which had torn through the Philippines in November 2013, leaving more than 7,000 dead or missing. “It’s déjà vu, but not the same as last year with Haiyan,” a Tacloban resident Mariano Tan Jr told the BBC.