Collaboration

Thank you for being here this week. I am very conscious of the great effort behind a meeting like this. That is why I thank every one of you. I also thank Xavier and Rossana for all the coordination they have done to prepare the meeting.

My first involvement in HIV and AIDS ministry happened in 2003. I was sent as regent to the new Jesuit organization, African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN), created by the Jesuit Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar and put under the leadership of Fr Michael Czerny. Being part of the infancy of AJAN became also the beginning of the journey into the reality of HIV/AIDS and issues related to it.

“We need to go out then to the ‘outskirts’ where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, prisoners in thrall to many evil masters”, and “go beyond the church walls”.

Père Stanislas’ concern is to make the children and youths living on the streets understand that children are not born of the streets, that life continues to be sacred, that family continues to be the basic unit of society and that each person has a unique value in the eyes of God. May Mgr. Munzihirwa intercede for the centre, which carries his name, so that we may give renewed spirit, joy and love for life to the so-called street children.

This is a short story of a relatively young and happy Jesuit scholar who did not plan to return to the social apostolate. After a period of joy and labor in the field of academia, education and coaching, I did not expect to receive the call to the coordination of social service and research in Europe and the Near East. The first response was a mix of interest and disquiet.

In 2016, I found myself elected delegation leader to two foreign business trips on behalf a huge government corporation with interest in a variety of business sectors. This came about following my appointment to sit on the Board of Directors of the same the corporation.

I entered the Novitiate in Manila in 2003 and at that time I don’t have any other inclination on what particular ministry I will be in except that I was hoping to become a priest someday and might end up in a parish. But little did I know that the apostolate assignments I was given as a novice and as a scholastic would eventually shape my interest and desire to engage in Social Apostolate for the most part of my Jesuit life.

When studying to be an engineer, I was moved by the commitment of the staff of the ATD Fourth World movement, who lived alongside very poor families, struggling side-by-side to realise change for them in society.

Mr. Vieng is a strong, 57 year old man from Laos. I knew him in 2009 in the prison in Thailand, where I work for the Jesuit Ministry. Vieng is a very hardworking and humble man who loves planting and gardening

In 1988, the year of the Seoul Olympics, I graduated from college and immediately entered the Society of Jesus. As we novices were beginning the second year of novitiate we made a 19th annotation "spiritual exercises in daily life."