Social Work

The guiding principle of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (1974/75): Our identity is realised in action for faith and justice. This direction was difficult to grasp for many German-speaking Jesuits. Two new communities (Frankfurt/M and Berlin) were to put these social and spiritual objectives into practice.

This first plenary meeting of social apostolate Jesuits and collaborators of the Japan and Korea Provinces took place in conjunction with the 2015 Gangjeong Peace Conference. This setting was chosen because 14 Jesuits and collaborators of the Japan Province attended the Peace Conference, and 13 of them stayed for the social apostolate meeting.

I have for the past three years worked in a service called Connexions as part of my regency, which I entered shortly after completing my Masters in Counselling Psychology at Boston College.

In the month of January 2014 I was visiting various educational centres of our Christian organizations in the four dioceses of Gujarat, India. Primarily I had to interview a few students with disabilities and non-disabilities, their parents and principals, in order to assess the impact of the inclusive education in their respective educational institutions.

The Integral Sport Program –PEI(ProgramaEsporteIntegral) isone ofthe social projects of theCitizenship and Social ActionJesuit Network.Itisaprogram locatedatUniversidade do ValedoRiodosSinos–UNISINOS,a JesuitUniversityinsouthofBrazil.

For the past decade, the US has experienced a crisis about border security and immigration policy – with a particular question about what to do with the 11 million immigrants who live and work in the shadows of the U.S.

For a long time Africa has been considered as a “hopeless” continent, a continent whose story is that of wars, violence, injustice, dictators, poverty, disease and a lot of other misfortunes. However, there are clear signs across Africa that this ‘story’ is about to change as we witness a new generation of young Africans taking action.

I am deeply concerned about the way the International Criminal Court (ICC) has so far handled the Kenya case in which the President, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his Deputy, William Ruto, together with a journalist Joseph Sang, stand accused of bearing the greatest responsibility for the Kenya 2007-08 post-election violence.

Bonfim is a small city in the state of Roraima, Brazil, near the border with Guyana. A group of Jesuits has been living there five years now, learning to work with the poor. Of the city's 15,000 inhabitants half are indigenous, mostly Wapixana and to a lesser extent Macuxi.

Since 2006 I have been deeply involved in the work of Instituto Mayor Campesino (IMCA-founded in 1962, a Jesuit centre at the service of rural communities in Colombia) in Valle de Cauca Department in southwest Colombia.