“Returning to Rerum Novarum Center is like coming home,” said Hanh. Hanh and many other migrant workers like her who had sought the comfort of the shelter consider Rerum Novarum Center, the Jesuit social work in Taipei, their “mother’s home” … Continued
Australian Jesuit Provincial Fr Brian McCoy has announced a project to bring together the Jesuits’ concerns for Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers, which he describes as “the bookends of rejection” in Australian history.
The first bookend, Fr McCoy said, is the arrival of the First Fleet of convicts and military from Britain in what is now Sydney in 1788.
Once a year, the lilt of the t’rung and the rise and fall of the sounds of the danbau transport audiences at a charity concert in Tokyo to the mountain regions of Vietnam. The performers are Vietnamese migrant workers in Japan, and this year’s concert featured a choir called “Cecilia”, that usually serves at the Vietnamese Sunday masses at St Ignatius Church next to the Jesuit Tokyo Social Center.
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.
The word “discernment” has become all the rage within Jesuit circles following the 36th General Congregation. Fr General Arturo Sosa has even appointed a special counsellor to oversee the process of discernment and apostolic planning in the Society. So it was fitting that the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific’s (JCAP) migration network examined the journey so far and charted a new course at its fourth annual meeting held in Tokyo from March 23 to 26. A new plan for the future was called for.
“The world is our house.” This phrase used by early Jesuit Jerome Nadal appropriately begins a section on Jesuit work with indigenous communities, the special focus of the 2017 Yearbook of the Society of Jesus.
“So, where is home for you?” Upon hearing this question, Sediqa broke down in tears. This seemingly innocent question brought back the only vague memory she has of the home she left when she was four. Being Hazara, a Shiite ethnic group in predominantly Sunni Afghanistan, she and her family were forced to flee the land they called home. Now 24 years old, Sediqa is stranded in Cisarua, West Java, Indonesia, the last stop in her seemingly endless journey through Pakistan, Iran and to the promised land that seems more and more distant as the time passes.
Barnabé Hounguevou is a scholastic from Benin, West Africa staying in Arrupe International Residence. He was one of 39 participants in the Scholastics and Brothers Circle Workshop held in Seoul, South Korea from December 19 to 28, 2016.
On January 13, Father Arturo Sosa SJ, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, joined the community of Centro Astalli (Jesuit Refugee Service Italy) in commemorating the International Day for Migrants and Refugees at the Church of Gesù, the Mother Church of the Society in Rome.
“This moment presents an important invitation to the Society of Jesus to accompany, with its few resources, and to share in the anxieties and hopes of the refugees here in Italy and everywhere in the world,” said Fr Sosa at the event.
Much has been written about migrant workers and their lives and trials working in foreign country. What is often overlooked, however, is what happens to the children who are left behind by their migrant worker parents.
How do the children cope with the absence of one or both parents? How are these children perceived by a society that still values traditional family and gender roles? To what extent does migration change the idea of child welfare or parenthood?