In late June, Singapore suffered from the worst ever haze in its history. The haze came from forest fires in Sumatra, across the Malacca Strait. A row broke out between some government officials in Singapore and Indonesia. This unfortunate incident provided a somewhat fitting backdrop to the annual Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific Social Apostolate meeting which took up the theme of collaboration. The meeting was held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia from June 24 to 28 with 40 participants from across the Conference and beyond, including Fr Xavier Jeyaraj SJ, assistant to the Secretary of Social Justice and Ecology office in Rome, and Luis Arancibia, executive director of Entreculturas in Spain.
The forest fires in Sumatra and the resultant haze crisis in Singapore brought home the message that today what seems like a local problem may have its origin, and therefore solution, elsewhere in the world. In the blame game that followed the haze crisis, several Indonesian officials pointed out that a number of the plantation firms responsible for the fires were actually owned by Malaysians and Singaporeans. The same applies to the destruction of the greater Mekong region, which lost one third of its forest cover between 1973 and 2009 due to the demand from the West for furniture.
This circumstance calls for a more concerted effort across state and sectoral boundaries to try to mitigate the situation. Such was the awareness that quickly came to the minds of the participants. As Christina Kheng put it, “collaboration is our salvation”. The Society of Jesus is present in almost every country in Asia Pacific and therefore can do a lot more by synchronising its services to the poor to address issues of concern. The collective nature of our mission was underlined by Fr Xavier in his presentation. He reminded us that the invitation of Christ the King in the Spiritual Exercises goes to everyone who is willing to labour together as companions in the Lord. General Congregation 35 affirms the message of collaboration with laity enshrined in GC 34 and takes it further by exploring possible means and avenues of building apostolic collaboration.
The participants were given several examples of collaboration with laity in Indonesia, business in Australia, Islam in Indonesia and with the Global Ignatian Advocacy Network (GIAN). Later the group had a more hands-on experience of collaboration when it visited four initiatives in and around Yogyakarta: the community of “Pangkal Sejahtera” (Sources of Prosperity) which produces organic fertilizers out of cow dung; the Pingit community which runs an educational programme for adults and children in the Pingit slum area; the Realino Community Service which provides healthcare, carpentry training and scholarships for poor students; and Rausyan Fikr, a Shiite Muslim research institute.
In the planning session, everyone came together to identify possibilities for collaboration across the Conference especially around the two Conference priorities of ecology and migration. The Mekong project featured prominently in the discussion around ecology. Another popular idea was to create as a database of all social apostolates in the Conference. The action plans and commitments will be developed further by the social apostolate core team. Fr Xavier Alpasa SJ from the Philippines was optimistic that these action plans would make collaboration workable. Several scholastics who attended the meeting also expressed their enthusiasm and willingness to take participate in them. The amount of good will visible throughout the meeting helped to mark the transition of the role of coordinator of JCAP Social Apostolate from Fr Denis Kim SJ to Fr Benny Juliawan SJ.