Almost two months after Tropical Storm Washi hit, the devastation it wreaked is “old news” for the media, but for the many people, the devastation it caused is very much a reality from which they are trying valiantly to recover.
Housing and the loss of income are major issues. In the villages of Ponod and Pantar, the villagers have found a way to derive an income from the debris.
As the Jesuit Refugee Service marks three decades of ministering to the needs of refugees, Fr Bernard Hyacinth Arputhasamy SJ, regional director of JRS in Asia and the Pacific, speaks to UCA News about the JRS mission in the region.
British Jesuit scholastic Stefan Garcia was in the Philippines when Tropical Storm Washi struck, and witnessed the destruction it caused. Stefan is half-Filipino – his mother is English and his father is Filipino – and he grew up in Cebu.
He reflects on his recent visit home.
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) published in January its strategic framework for the next four years, upon receiving approval of the document from Father General Adolfo Nicolás SJ. The product of extensive consultation throughout 2011, the Jesuit Refugee Service Strategic Framework 2012-2015 provides an inspirational and challenging set of strategies for all 10 JRS regions.
How do we promote reconciliation with creation to our fellow Jesuits in Asia Pacific? With imaginative and powerful images as the members of the Scholastics and Brothers Circle showed in the innovative campaign materials they developed during a workshop on Effective Communications held from December 19 to 30, 2011.
The free legal services offered by the Jesuit Social Center in Tokyo in the last year has proven to be a boon to foreign migrants. The centre already has 35 legal cases solved or awaiting resolution in its files.
“More than half of all the Catholics in Japan are of other nationalities. Anyone in contact with foreigners in Japan realises the complexity of the situations they face, their need to learn the Japanese language, and the legal barriers they encounter,” said Fr Ando Isamu SJ, who is on the centre’s staff.
Xavier University has started to help resettle survivors of Tropical Storm Washi. Thousands were rendered homeless by the flash floods that wiped out parts of Cagayan de Oro City in Southern Philippines on December 16 and 17, 2011.
Banteay Prieb, a training centre set up by Jesuit Service Cambodia for Cambodians maimed by the war or by landmines, celebrated its 20th anniversary on December 20, 2011.
The Centre of the Dove, as it is called in English, is located in a former military communication centre, prison and Khmer Rouge killing field. But the centre has transformed the former place of fighting and killing into a place for peace, justice and reconciliation.
Xavier University is appealing for funds to help the victims of Typhoon Sendong (International Name: Tropical Storm Washi), which struck the southern Philippines on December 17, causing flash floods and landslides.
Typhoon Washi slammed ashore on Mindanao island in the dead of night, sending torrents of water and mud through riverside villages, drowning scores of people as they slept, and sweeping houses out to sea. Tens of thousands of people have been rendered homeless and many are now in evacuation centres. As of December 20, the official death toll was close to 1,000.
In a speech delivered at the recent Sophia Symposium in Tokyo, Fr Mark Raper SJ, President of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, argued for a view of education as “formation for decision and for action: education of the head, the heart and the hands”.
Advocating a pedagogy in which reflection is central, Fr Mark sees the role of education as leading students to love the world, to assume responsibility for it, and to acquire tools in order to renew it.
As such, universities need to go beyond the core business of providing education in competence and critical thinking.