In a piece of land measuring 5m x 11m, we began building late last year a simple structure of wooden posts and a nylon mesh roof for the purpose of growing seedlings of hardwood trees native to Cambodia. Located within Banteay Prieb, the Jesuit-run vocational school for people with disabilities, the tree nursery is a collaborative effort of the agriculture students of the centre and their teacher Mr Mam Sony.
Since 2011, we have held during Water Week the annual Lane Cove River Catchment Day, a combined project of the schools of the Lane Cove river catchment team where whole group and small group activities are held based around local catchment issues. The Lane Cove river catchment is 95.4 square kilometres and contains 12,600 megalitres of water.
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.
Jesuit scholastics and brothers from across the Conference gathered in Cambodia at the end of the year to reflect on healing a broken world. Mark Lopez SJ, Chairman of SBC 2012 Core Organising Committee, provides this report of the meeting.
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.
As we look towards Christmas and the hope the birth of Jesus brought us, we remember that in Korea, a Jesuit will be spending his Christmas in prison for standing up for justice.
Korean Jesuit Fr Lee Young-chan and five other peace activists were detained by the police on October 24. He had been protesting the excessive force used by the police in detaining a woman activist, and when the police manhandled him, they claimed his resistance amounted to violence. On Oct 26, the court upheld his arrest and denied him bail. His trial is ongoing.
Jesuit scholastics in the Loyola House of Studies located in the Ateneo de Manila University campus have embarked on a series of initiatives to raise awareness about care for the environment in community lifestyle and house management.
Reconciliation with Creation is a priority for the Society of Jesus and a key concern of the Indonesian Province. Scholastic Billy Aryo Nugroho SJ reports on a Go Green course that was conducted for Jesuit scholastics in Jakarta.
The Shimonoseki Labour Education Centre (LEC) in Japan and the Jesuit Research Centre for Advocacy and Solidarity (JAS) in Korea jointly held an Anti-nuclear Peace Conference in July. LEC Director, Fr Hisashi Hayashi SJ, hosted Jesuits and peace movement members from the two countries for the two-day meeting that began after breakfast on July 12.
The joint sponsorship is a result of the recent agreement between the Korea and Japan Provinces to heighten the level of inter-Province cooperation.
The social apostolate needs to be approached from the perspective of Ignatian Spirituality, which provides a new way of seeing all things. Fr Patxi Alvarez SJ, Director of the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat in Rome, made this point at the JCAP Social Apostolate meeting in August.