The Ignatian Advocacy Workshop, held in El Escorial, Spain from November 10 – 16, was described as a success by Fr Fernando Franco, director of the Social Justice Secretariat. He said: "The fruits of the Workshop have gone beyond our expectations. Besides learning from current experiences, making valuable contacts and clarifying our motivation as Jesuits to engage in advocacy, the group has also become aware that we are living a uniquely blessed and challenging moment in history, a ‘kairos’ moment, and has committed itself to act on it."

Sister Denise Coughlan RSM presented the Campaigns to ban landmines and cluster bombs that Jesuit Refugee Service has been part of for many years in Cambodia. She explained how after an initial 6-week process of discernment on "what to do" they built a team of national and international, refugee and non-refugee, disabled and non-disabled, Buddhist and Christian staff members that symbolised reconciliation in a country that was profoundly divided at the time.

Their advocacy regarding the ban on landmines was successful, in part because they worked closely with NGOs who were already experts on the issue so JRS could avoid being "a bunch of do-gooders" with no expertise. Another reason was that survivors played a major role in the advocacy action, under the motto "Say nothing about us without us". The campaign continues to work on a ban on cluster bombs. (Source: http://www.ignatianadvocacy.org/)

Other representatives from the EAO Assistancy and the experiences that they brought to the workshop were: Fr Chong-dae Kim (KOR), SJ Bishops’ Conference JPIC: A social research on conscientious objection to seminarians in 2007; Ms Julie Edwards, Dropping off the edge: The distribution of disadvantage in Australia; and Dr Anna Marie Karaos, ICSI: Lobby for an urban land reform law and the repeal of the anti-squatting law in the Philippines. Briefs of their papers can be read at http://www.ignatianadvocacy.org/.