The Rev. Gary Smith worked with several young students at Kakuma Refugee camp, including Luul, a Muslim from Somalia. Photo courtesy Jesuit Refugee Service.

Jesuit Father Gary Smith has dedicated more than 50 years of his life to serving the poor, including the last dozen in African refugee camps in Uganda, South Africa and Kenya. He says that working with the poor in U.S. cities, such as Portland, Tacoma and Oakland, prepared him for his work with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Africa.

“It gave me a viewpoint of how the church had moved toward the poor. All the personalities you find on the streets prepare you for all the personalities you find in the camps. Human beings are human beings,” Fr. Smith says.

Now back in the states, Fr. Smith recently spoke with The Oregonian about why he’s drawn to Africa: “There are the poor and there are the poor. My experience in the refugee camp is that people there have no address, no money, no documents. The degree of poverty is very different.”

Fr. Smith also discussed working with refugees from other faiths.  He said working with Muslims was not difficult. “They believe in the absolute, the creator. They want help discerning how God is moving in their lives,” he says. “They saw me as a father, someone who wanted to listen to them very attentively. These students knew the Quran, and they rejected extremists out of hand.”

Fr. Smith also spent time helping refugee students work on an online diploma program through Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins, which is run by Jesuit universities and JRS.  “When you work with really bright refugees who want nothing more than to be a man and a woman for others, there is a great sense of accomplishment in that,” Fr. Smith says.

To read the complete interview with Fr. Smith, visit The Oregonian website.

The warlord and his ruthless guerrilla group are responsible for a 26-year campaign of terror in Uganda that has been marked by child abductions and widespread killings. Last year, President Obama dispatched 100 U.S. troops — mostly Army Special Forces — to Central Africa to advise regional forces in their hunt for Kony.

The group running the Kony 2012 campaign is holding a nationwide event today – Friday, April 20 —  titled “Cover the Night,” where supporters are encouraged to spread the word of Kony 2012 around their local communities.

The Society of Jesus, the largest religious order of Roman Catholic priests and brothers in the world, has worked in Uganda for more than 40 years.  The Society’s Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) has conducted peace-building workshops, run schools and economic development projects and ministered to refugees in Uganda. In 2005, the Jesuits of the Eastern Africa Province began planning for a secondary school in northern Uganda, the Ocer Campion Jesuit College in Gulu. The co-educational high school admitted its first students in early 2010 and is already having a tremendously positive impact in a region devastated by over 20 years of civil war. The school will grow to a capacity of 1,200 students and includes agricultural and vocational training as well as rigorous academic formation in the Jesuit tradition, religious formation and peace education.

In this podcast, Jesuit Father Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, the Jesuit provincial of Eastern Africa, speaks with National Jesuit News about the Jesuit’s work in Uganda, the progress that’s been made, the work that still needs to be done and how young people can get involved.

Jesuit Father Jean-Baptiste Mazarati spoke to students, faculty and staff about the Jesuit ministry in Africa and his plans to return to the continent after receiving a doctoral degree from Georgetown. // Photo: Georgetown University

Two African Jesuits completing their doctorates in health care at Georgetown spoke to students, faculty and staff last week about their plans to return to the country to help their communities.

The talk, “Jesuits in Africa: The Hope of International Development” was part of Jesuit Heritage Week, which began on Jan. 29 and ran through Feb. 4.

“Jesuits are working in 28 out of 54 African countries today,” noted Jesuit Father Rodrigue Takoudjou.“We African Jesuits clearly perceive health care and education as priorities in our ministries.”

Fr. Takoudjuou, of Cameroon, is getting his Ph.D. in pharmacology, plans to teach at a Jesuit medical school in Chad.

One of the main health care issues that Jesuits are helping combat in Africa is HIV/AIDS, mostly through organizations such as The African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN).

“AJAN’s mission is to stimulate and coordinate the work of African Jesuits in responding to HIV and AIDS in an effective, coordinated and evangelical manner, culturally sensitive and spiritually grounded,” he explained. “The African Jesuits are involved in more than 100 HIV/AIDS initiatives throughout the continent.”

Fellow panelist Jesuit Father Jean-Baptiste Mazarati, of Rwanda, will teach at the state medical school in his country when he graduates with a doctorate in tumor biology in 2012.

“Africa stands in the world as a big question mark. So who will answer that question?” Mazarati said. “It is a question of endemic poverty. It is a question of endemic disease. It is a question of endemic conflicts. It is a question of lack of leadership. …It is a question of a continent that holds so much richness, yet is struggling to take off.”

Africa also has a large population of children, he said, so there is a strong need for educational advancements.

Jesuits are sending Rwandan priests around the world to seek higher education in the sciences, social sciences and development “to make sure that tomorrow we come back to Rwanda stronger,” and ready to teach, Mazarati said.

Carol Lancaster, dean of the School of Foreign Service, moderated the event. Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, also participated in the panel discussion.

“Jesuits have made such a contribution to this university and to the world,” Lancaster said.

The Jesuits’ personal stories of mission and ministry in Africa enlightened, yet posed more questions for some in the audience.

“The intersection between religion and African development is an extremely interesting field that must be further explored to fully understand the challenges and hopes of development,” said Vivian Ojo, who helped organize the event with Mariana Santos.

“The Jesuits provided some answers to some of the most difficult questions [plaguing Africa],” Ojo added. “I left the conversation with a desire to search for more answers about a topic not often explored.”

World AIDS Day, December 1, 2011

Dear Benefactors and Friends,

I write to you with a great deal of joy in my heart as we mark the completion of another school year at St. Aloysius. We are grateful to all of you who have supported us in every way through this year. It seems that, each day, we take a small step; it is easy to neglect to look back and consider what has been accomplished since our modest beginnings in 2004. With our 59 seniors, who have just finished their month-long final exams, we have graduated just short of 300 students. Nearly all have continued on in the graduate program with community service for six months and sponsorship for college. We expect to have our first graduates receive their Bachelor’s degrees in 2012.

In 2001, we reached out to those whose needs we saw were the greatest – the people living in Kibera slum who were dying of AIDS.  We asked them how we could help them. They all asked us to take care of their children.  Today, with your important partnership, their children, now orphans, have been given an opportunity and hope for a high school and college education and a life far beyond their parents’ dreams.  Thanks to your financial support, your prayers, and your willingness to share the story of St. Al’s, our students have hope and aspire to live the school motto “to learn, to love and to serve”.

For the fifth consecutive year, Margaret Halpin and Charles DeSantis of Georgetown University taught art classes to interested St. Al’s students. As always it was a wonderful opportunity to develop talent and to find outlets for creative expression. Again, this year Kuona Trust offered us a gallery where students were invited to exhibit their paintings to the public.

As the year draws to an end, we celebrate some of the many accomplishments of our students. Some 30 St. Al’s students participated in the World Peace Day Competition for the countries of East Africa. Through competitions involving speeches, quizzes and skits, St. Al’s won the Fr. John Anthony Kaiser Peace Trophy (Fr. Kaiser was an American Catholic missionary, working in Kenya, who was martyred in the cause of justice).  St. Al’s Head Girl and Junior, Sharon Sophy, was elected Deputy Governor at the Kenya National Children’s Parliament. Once again, our school drama group rose through the local and province levels to compete at the national festival. At a French competition involving many of the most respected schools in Nairobi, our students won the top prize!

In early December, we look forward to the construction of a well on our property so that we will have regular access to our own fresh water.  The well has been funded by another grant from the American People through the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) program and should be completed in time for the new school year in January, 2012.

Our website, www.sagnairobi.org has been updated and offers our original video (now also updated) to tell our story. I encourage you to take a look at it and share the video and website with your friends and family. We rely on the kindness and financial support of many generous people and with your help we can educate more AIDS Orphans in Kibera slum.

It was a great pleasure for me to spend more time than usual in the US this year and to have more time to interact with many of you.  It was an even greater pleasure to return to St. Al’s with your encouragement about what we are accomplishing. I was greatly heartened by your commitment to ongoing financial support, even in the midst of the challenges of the world economic crisis. It is so good to have your support as we all work together to help the dreams of a better future become a reality for our high school students, graduates and their families.

One of my special joys this year – now that we have our beautifully furnished school chapel – has been to plan and celebrate a mass.

with each of the 8 classes at St. Al’s. Each occasion was uniquely inspiring due to the efforts each class made, first, to choose a theme meaningful to the group and, then, to develop it with Scripture readings, songs and symbols. Not one of these occasions passed without the students praying for you and your loved ones.  As we enter into the holiday season and reflect upon God’s overwhelming love celebrated in the birth of Christ, our gratitude to you can only increase.

Sincerely,

Terry Charlton, SJ

Additional Giving Ideas
Cost per student for one year…

$1,200 Tuition and fees

$130    Breakfast and Lunch

$100    Textbooks

$30      Sports Kit

$25      School Uniform

$400    Salary and benefits for one teacher for one month

$125    Educational field trip for one

class of 35 students

To give to the St. Aloysius, please click HERE.

For this year’s Teach In, Jesuit Father Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, provincial of the East African Province of the Society of Jesus, was the keynote speaker who discussed the issues facing his province today. During his time at the Teach In, National Jesuit News interviewed Fr. Orobator about the challenges that the Society of Jesus faces in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and the Republics of the Sudan in the North and South.

“I think the unique mission of the Society of Jesus is that we are able to think ‘outside of the box’.” I think that is very unique to Jesuits,” says Fr. Orobator. “We can work in parishes, we can run schools, we can run communications centers, we can run many different apostolates, but we can do it in a way that is unconventional.”

The theme of this year’s event was “The Gritty Reality: Feel It, Think It, Engage It,” derived from a speech given by former Jesuit Superior General, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, in 2000 entitled, “The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education.” Kolvenbach said, “students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively.”

You can watch National Jesuit News’ interview with Fr. Orobator below.

The Jesuits are responding to this humanitarian crisis in two ways: immediate food assistance and long-term projects. According to the UN, more than 12 million people are in need of emergency assistance, primarily in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

Check out our video interview with Fr. Orobator below.

The Jesuits pray for all those suffering from drought, hunger, displacement and famine in the Horn of Africa and are grateful for your ongoing prayers and support.

For more information about how you can help, please visit:
http://www.jesuitpartners.org/faminerelief
and
http://www.jrsusa.org/donate

The Teach-In is an opportunity for members of Jesuit institutions and partners to gather for learning, prayer, networking and legislative advocacy on Capitol Hill. Teach-In attendees represent twenty-eight Jesuit universities, over twenty-five Jesuit high schools, Jesuit parishes, Jesuit volunteer communities, and many other Catholic institutions and organizations.

Keynote speakers include Jesuit Father Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, Provincial of the East African Province of the Society of Jesus, among others.

Fr. Orobator is a lecturer at Hekima College Jesuit School of Theology, Nairobi, Kenya, the author of Theology Brewed in an African Pot and often presents on ethical and theological issues in church, religion, and society in Africa.

The theme of IFTJ 2011 is “The Gritty Reality: Feel It, Think It, Engage It,” derived from a speech given by former Jesuit Superior General, Jesuit Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, in 2000 entitled, “The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education.” Kolvenbach said, “Students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively.”

IGNATIAN FAMILY TEACH-IN FOR JUSTICE SCHEDULE – more details available at: http://tinyurl.com/IFTJ-schedule

Saturday, November 12, 2011 Georgetown Hotel and Conference Center (3800 Reservoir Road, NW, Washington, DC 20057)
4 PM – 10 PM

Sunday, November 13, 2011 Georgetown Hotel and Conference Center (3800 Reservoir Road, NW, Washington, DC 20057)
9 AM – 9 PM (includes liturgy at 6:30 PM)

Monday, November 14, 2011
Capitol Hill Advocacy Day (various locations – more information available upon media request)
9 AM – 3 PM

Jesuit

“The thought was, I can do what I want, which is to be a college teacher, and I could be a priest, which is what God wants,” he said. “My identity was set. I would reflect now that God wanted what I wanted most deeply, and that is why this has been such a charmed life for me.”

Fifty years later, the Loyola University New Orleans philosophy professor is celebrating a half-century as a Jesuit. Rowntree’s teaching style has been driven by his engaging and energetic personality during his 35 years in the classroom. He said he likes to try to “rattle students’ cages” a little bit, but he does so with a purpose…

Rowntree’s work has not just focused on undergrads. He also has worked extensively to teach philosophy and ethics to seminarians studying to be Jesuit priests. From 1994 to 2001, he helped found Arrupe College, a four-year integrated philosophy, religious studies and humanities program for English-speaking African Jesuit scholars in Harare, Zimbabwe. Before that, he taught seminarians at Loyola for 10 years.

“It was a great adventure. We started out with an empty field, and within a couple of years, we had a fully functioning campus,” he said about his time at Arrupe College.

Read more about Rowntree’s life as a Jesuit at Nola.com.

Fifth grade students from Our St. Joseph Jesuit Parish Primary School in Kasungu, Malawi visit the site of the future Loyola Jesuit Secondary School with their headmaster (back left), Fr. Peter Henriot, SJ, development director of Loyola Jesuit Secondary School (back center) and Fr. Alojz Podgrajsek, SJ, project director of Loyola Jesuit Secondary School (back right).

Serving in Zambia on sabbatical in 1989 had a life-changing affect on Jesuit Father Peter Henriot. “Working in a village development project with local people and doing simple tasks did almost more for my education than all the other learning I gathered while studying and working in the United States. And at the end of that year, the people there gave me the best gift – the desire to stay.”

And for the next 21 years that’s exactly what Fr. Henriot was able to do, having joined the Zambia-Malawi Province (transferring from the Oregon Province) while working with the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection in Zambia after having spent the previous 16 years with Center of Concern in Washington, D.C.  And, then in 2010, he was assigned to another purpose – to help establish Loyola Jesuit Secondary School (LJSS) in Malawi.

Although it is a country rich in natural resources, Malawi, whose nickname is “The Warm Heart of Africa,” continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world in terms of human development. It ranks a somber 153 out of 169 on the United Nations Human Development Index, which is largely caused by lack of educational opportunities for its youth.

“There simply is no future for Malawi without better education for the young people,” Henriot states.

With encouragement from the Catholic Bishops of Malawi, the government of Malawi officials and local families, the Zambia-Malawi Province of the Society of Jesus decided to establish LJSS in the poor rural city of Kasungu.  As its Director of Development, Henriot is charged with fund-raising for this enormous educational project.

“People often ask me ‘what’s an old man like you doing in such a new and demanding job’, to which I reply ‘Jesuits might get tired, but we never get retired!’”

Henriot and the Jesuits of the Zambia-Malawi Province are working to provide a secondary education to young Malawian women and men that will embody the characteristics of a Jesuit education of intellectual and spiritual excellence, and a curriculum dedicated to life skills, character development and community service responsibilities.  Their vision is of a school that could accommodate approximately 500 students; a 50/50 mix of girls and boys. Run in cooperation with the Malawian government, LJSS will be a “grant-aided” school, helping to offset teacher salaries. This will make it more widely affordable to students from families of modest means.  In addition, significant employment opportunities will be generated throughout the community of Kasungu during construction, and through servicing and maintenance of the facility.

As a boarding school, the goal is to create a learning environment that is genuinely Jesuit in all aspects of life, with a required community service program in place so that students learn in many practical ways what it is to be educated to be “a person for others.”

“We want to set up an ‘elite school’ of the best educational values and structure, but not an ‘elitist’ school only open to the rich. I think this can be a practical implementation of something we all talk a lot about, the ‘preferential option for the poor’,” says Henriot.

Having done a lot of work over the years with the church’s social teaching, Henriot sees Loyola Jesuit Secondary School as a major contributor to what true development is all about: enabling the human person to become more human in community. What that means while facing Malawi’s very poor economic environment will be a big challenge for the school administrators and its students to overcome.

Right now, the Zambia-Malawi Jesuit Province now has a large financial task ahead of them, and has already begun to seek large donations from foundations and institutions to help fund this school project, as well as small contributions from individual supporters of this effort.

“To raise money in a time of global economic decline has been no easy task,” says Fr. Henriot, “but what particularly encourages me are the small amounts coming in from friends and others who have learned what we are about.”

There have been some very generous grants from Jesuit Provinces in Europe, who see the value of this educational effort at this time. But the project still has a long way to go – the goal is to start construction in 2012 and to be ready to welcome the first year students in 2013. Henriot is hoping that this immensely important task will be made possible by future donations and volunteers, and will enable a well-rounded Jesuit education for the children of Malawi to not just be a dream but to ultimately become a reality.

For more information or to make a donation to Loyola Jesuit Secondary School contact: phenriot@jesuits.org.zm

“The Catholic community in South Sudan especially shares the responsibility to help shape the life of the new country. Because of this important role, Catholic Relief Services and an association of women’s and men’s religious orders named Solidarity with South Sudan invited me to conduct a week-long workshop in August for church leaders. I was asked to speak about how the Catholic understanding of social justice and peace could contribute to the development of the new country. It was a humbling privilege. What follows sketches some of the suggestions I made, moving from the foundational principle of Catholic social thought to several more practical recommendations…”

1. The protection of the human dignity of every person, which requires active participation in the life of society, is the core responsibility in all social interactions, and protection of the most basic requirements of human dignity is the particular responsibility of the new government of South Sudan.

2. The people of South Sudan should be helped to become active citizens through civic education that teaches them how to work together for the common good of all.

3. Citizens should hold government officials accountable for using the power bestowed on them to serve the common good of all, and the capacity of citizens to hold officials accountable should be strengthened.

4. Every person is to be treated with reverence and respect, independent of ethnicity, race, or religion; tribalism is a serious threat to attaining the justice and peace that independence promises and must be resisted.

5. National unity depends on justice in the distribution of land.

6. National unity depends on justice in the distribution of the proceeds from the extraction of natural resources such as oil.

Click below to listen to an interview with Fr. Hollenbach on Radio Bakhita, the leading FM station in Juba, South Sudan.