MAGiS has launched an extensive, worldwide review of the MAGiS08 programme, inviting participants of the World Youth Day Ignatian programme to take part in it. By gathering together comments, stories, and memories of MAGiS08, the ministry hopes to build an invaluable archive of the programme and to acquire guidance for the ministry’s direction.
The review has been commissioned by the Australian Provincial, Fr Steve Curtin SJ. ‘Through this evaluation [participants] can help us to discern where God is leading us in our young adult Ignatian ministry’, explains Fr Curtin.
The invitation has been extended to the Ignatian community worldwide, including pilgrim groups, experiment teams throughout Asia and Australia, and volunteers who assisted at the Ignatian Gathering, the MAGiS08 Youth Festival and the post-World Youth Day programme.
‘Our ultimate aim is to share the information and stories gathered from this evaluation and reflection with the international Ignatian community, possibly collating the stories in a published format’, says the review team. ‘We believe that the input will form the basis of an invaluable collection of inspiration and resources for the MAGiS network.’
Lead participants in MAGiS08 – from group leaders to volunteers, Experiment team leaders and MAGiS08 Youth Festival presenters – will receive an email inviting them to evaluate the programme and to share their significant MAGiS08 experiences, memories and stories. Group leaders will also be asked to select five pilgrims from their group to complete their own evaluation and reflection. ‘Amazing things are taking place in the MAGiS community around the world’, says MAGiS National Coordinator Jenni Winters. ‘We have extended this invitation to the wider MAGiS08 group leader network to assist with this reconnection. We are excited to give a voice to their stories.’
As well as evaluation and reflection forms, the review pack includes suggestions on how best to reflect on the process. It is hoped that the process will provide young adults with another opportunity to energise their local MAGiS communities, and to creatively engage with one another. ‘Beyond filling out forms and gathering factual information, this is a way we can come together and contribute to the telling of the MAGiS08 story’, says the review team.
If you have received a copy of the review from the MAGiS team, please email your responses before Monday 22 December. If you haven’t received a copy, and would like your voice heard, please email the MAGiS office at info@magis.org.au. (Contributor: Ms Catherine Marshall, Communications Officer, Jesuit Communications Australia)