Daring to dream of a brighter future
On November 1, 2016, Kang Han began her secondary education in Xavier Jesuit School in Cambodia. The 12-year-old girl is a scholarship student and one of the 34 students in the new school’s first Grade 7 class.
Working together to form young persons of faith in our schools
How do we accompany young people in the mission of reconciliation and justice? How do we engage students in this digital age? Who are we in what we do? These were some of the questions discussed in the first JCAP Meeting of Chaplains and Campus Ministers.
In the footsteps of Matteo Ricci
Four centuries after Matteo Ricci arrived in China, Jesuits continue in the way he forged for engaging with the country. Where Ricci shared his expertise in mathematics, cosmology and astronomy, and brought to the Emperor’s court Western clocks, musical, mathematical and astronomical instruments and cosmological, geographical and architectural works with maps and diagrams, today’s Jesuits share their knowledge of philosophy, ethics and history in a university or research setting.
Communal discernment for Ignatian decision making in schools
Ignatian educators from four countries in Asia Pacific recently gathered in the Philippines to learn how to apply communal discernment as an added dimension to the decision making process in their schools.
Students hear the voices of refugees first hand
Jesuit Refugee Service Australia has teamed up with Refugee Council of Australia to create a programme that gives young people the chance to meet a refugee and hear first hand the reasons why people are forced to flee their homes.
“We’re seeing the biggest migration crisis since WWII, and yet, it’s not the voices of those being forced to flee their homes we hear, but the voices of the powerful. At JRS we believe this needs to change,” said JRS Australia in its website.
Rowing into the deep
General Congregation 36 (GC 36) dominated Jesuit life during 2016. The theme, “Row into the deep”, was derived from a message of Pope Francis to the Society of Jesus in 2014, echoing Jesus’ call to his disciples to “put out into the deep”. In the Congregation logo, the IHS represents the Society’s boat in the Church; the waves are the troubled seas of our times into which Jesuits are invited to row with faith.
Building the Philippines’ first eco-friendly school
Ateneo de Davao University is building a new campus for its senior high school that is being touted as the first environmentally responsible school in the Philippines. The campus has been designed to create a contemporary, sustainable and transformative learning environment following Pope Francis’ environmental directives in his encyclical, Laudato si’. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on February 15 and the school is expected to be completed in May 2019.
Igniting excellence in education through Ignatian formation
The Education Commission of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP) has launched a programme designed to address the various formation needs of Jesuit primary and secondary schools in the region. The “Ignatian Initiative for Teaching Excellence” (IGNITE) programme offers a selection of workshops for faculty and staff to support them in their role as Ignatian educators.
“The IGNITE programme is designed by practitioners for practitioners, in consultation with experts and specialists,” said Fr Johnny Go SJ, JCAP Education Secretary.
Building a community of Jesuit schools
#sfxjcap2016. In October this hashtag began appearing in Instagram as students, faculty and staff of Jesuit schools in Asia Pacific posted photographs of themselves and their friends in front of the Educate Magis map in their schools. The photos were entries to the St Francis Xavier Global Network Instagram Competition.
Educate Magis is an online community that connects educators from more than 2,000 Jesuit and Ignatian schools all over the world and the map shows the rich diversity and wide reach of the global network of Jesuit schools.
One foot in the air
One foot on the ground, another in the air – always on a journey to serve God. This is an image Fr Ross Jones SJ, President of Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview in Sydney, Australia uses to show what it means for students and teachers in a Jesuit school to be contemplatives-in-action.