During the last two weeks of December 2009, JESCOMEAO, JesCom Philippines and the JCEAO Scholastics and Brothers-in-Formation Circle jointly conducted a communications workshop for 24 Jesuit scholastics. The workshop was held at JesCom’s Garage facilities on the campus of Ateneo de Manila University in Manila. Arrupe International Residence also made its facilities available for the event. The participants were from East Timor, China, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia-Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, and the Philippines. The entire group attended opening sessions on marketing, led by Prof. Aman Santos of the University of the Philippines, where examples of Jesuit vocation promotion were studied and analyzed and new experimental models created. Then the scholastics split into three groups where they studied graphic design, website construction, and video production. Each group presented the results of their projects on the final day of the course. Throughout the workshop, Conference Formation Delegate Fr Matthias Chae (KOR) and SBC Coordinator Mark Aloysius (MAS) were present to encourage and facilitate the scholastics in their projects and activities.  

Two weeks is a very short time to master these sophisticated skills and technologies but the enthusiasm of the scholastics was high and they worked intensively in spite of the pleasant and inspiring ‘distractions’ of Christmas in the Philippines. JesCom Philippines is now quite proficient and well-equipped for conducting communication workshops. Hopefully the scholastics living on the Ateneo campus will continue to make use of these resources to upgrade their communication skills and acquire new ones. 

Photos and comments from the workshop can be found in Facebook – ‘SBC Communications Dec. 2009’.

Contributor: Fr Jerry Martinson