Appalachia Service Group Meets

Appalachia Service Group Leaders Meet for Social Analysis, Reflection, and Action

Wheeling, WV  Oct. 5-7, 2007    Wheeling Jesuit University’s Appalachia Institute hosted a conference entitled Appalachian Immersion Orientation and Exchange Weekend  to help service groups from Jesuit Universities who visit the region to better understand the realities of living in Appalachia.

According to the Institute’s executive director, Dr. Jill Kriesky, “we are striving to facilitate trainings that will allow Jesuit institutions lead Appalachian service immersion programs that are truly Ignatian – trips on which participants will become attuned to God’s promptings and support of action in solidarity with oppressed people of the region.”

Held at Lantz Farm in rural West Virginia – an immersion itself of sorts - the conference aimed to help immersion groups consider how they might broaden the reflection and action of their current service trips.  The weekend included a social analysis of the region by Rev. Brian O’Donnell, SJ, the Research Director of the Appalachia Institute.  O’Donnell brought to light the environmental and social challenges of the coal industry in the region, and highlighted its importance to meeting energy needs nationwide.

Immersion trip leaders were able to discuss how to lead a trip rooted in faith when students from a plurality of religions may attend.  A reflection on solidarity by novice Jesuit Jason Welle guided that reflection and helped to consider different ways of discussing faith roots and motivation for action.  “Solidarity presupposes the effort for a more just social order…” explained Welle.

Possible ways of living out that solidarity when groups return home, through such actions as advocacy and public education were discussed in various sessions hosted by local advocacy groups and the Jesuit Conference.  “For students to take up advocacy assumes a conversion of heart took place during their immersion,” stated Rev. Rob Callen of Weston Jesuit School of Theology.  The weekend aimed to help leaders develop the ideal environments for such conversions to occur.

For more information about the conference, contact Dr. Jill Kriesky, Director of the Appalachia Institute, at (304) 243-6243, or jkriesky@wju.edu