Teachers from Jesuit schools in Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, Timor-Leste and Cambodia, including four Jesuit priests and one scholastic, recently gathered in Sydney, Australia, for an Advanced Ignatian Teaching Programme. The five-day workshop, which began on November 11, was conducted by teachers and staff of St Ignatius College, Riverview.
In the early hours of June 18, 73 Cambodians, a mix of students from the Arrupe Welcoming Centre for the disabled and St Joseph’s Parish Tahen, boarded a plane to Singapore for a two week cultural dance tour. A mixture of excitement and anticipation flowed through the aircraft, as teachers and support staff tried to complete the Singapore immigration documents before landing. The Battambang Arrupe Tahen Dance Troupe had been invited to Singapore to perform at the CHARIS humanitarian forum on June 22.
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.
Father General Adolfo Nicolás SJ has given his permission for the establishment of an education project in Cambodia. The school, as proposed in the report Discerning a Major Focus for our Education Project in Cambodia, comprises a medium sized secondary school with four classes in each grade and a small primary school with two classes in each grade. It will include a teacher training resource centre (which will also function as a community learning centre) and a hostel for trainee teachers.
There was much delight at the recent JCAP Education meeting in two significant developments.
Fr Christopher Gleeson SJ, JCAP Education Secretary and meeting chairman, shared that the group learnt a good deal from inaugural Principal, Fr Plinio, about the beginning in January of the new school in Timor-Leste, Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola.
Jesuits in Southeast Asia will be taking a more active role in the fight against human trafficking, which Pope Francis recently called “a despicable activity, a disgrace for our societies, which describe themselves as civilized”.
In a piece of land measuring 5m x 11m, we began building late last year a simple structure of wooden posts and a nylon mesh roof for the purpose of growing seedlings of hardwood trees native to Cambodia. Located within Banteay Prieb, the Jesuit-run vocational school for people with disabilities, the tree nursery is a collaborative effort of the agriculture students of the centre and their teacher Mr Mam Sony.
On January 27, Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims, both foreigners and Khmer, gathered together at Choeung Ek, otherwise known as the Killing Fields of Cambodia, to remember and pray for the thousands of innocent Cambodians who were executed there under the Khmer Rouge regime. The remembrance of the genocide victims that afternoon was part of the commemoration of World Interfaith Harmony Week, which concluded with the planting of several trees within Choeung Ek.
Father Francisco Oh In-don has been appointed Delegate of the Provincial of Korea for the Cambodia Mission. Korea Provincial Fr John Sin is to decide when Fr Francisco will take over the office of Delegate.
Fr Francisco will take over from Fr Gabriel Je Byong-young who has dedicated himself for the last six years to consolidating the foundation and systemising the administration of the mission.
Jesuit scholastics and brothers from across the Conference gathered in Cambodia at the end of the year to reflect on healing a broken world. Mark Lopez SJ, Chairman of SBC 2012 Core Organising Committee, provides this report of the meeting.