Reflections Your generosity is - Our actions in review - Jesuit Mission
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Reflections
Our actions in review
Issue #626 Summer 2021
Your generosity is
enriching lives and inspiring hope.
India
COVID-19 response: Your profound impact
Farewell and
thank you
As the outgoing Rector of
Jesuit Mission, I would like to
take this opportunity to thank
To date:
all of you for your support of
• 17,566 people have received emergency food relief Jesuit Mission.
packages
It has been a blessed five years,
• 1,315 people were employed through ‘Cash for Work’ where I have encountered and
programs befriended so many generous
people who share the same ideal
• 15 people participated in an income generating scheme of justice and love for the poor. I
Dear Friends, that enabled them to open small businesses have loved the opportunity to visit
• New wells were installed and repairs to village schools, my Jesuit brothers and serve the
Last year, during what was an people that they accompany. It has
incredibly challenging time, I was truly toilets, kitchens and essential utilities were carried out
across the state. been a joy to see faith, hope, and
humbled by the generosity shown love in action, and the multitude of
by you, our wonderful Jesuit Mission This compassion in action is not just helping vulnerable lives enriched.
community, to our work overseas. I people to survive the pandemic, but upholding their dignity
was especially moved by the resilience and creating new opportunities for their future. I am deeply grateful to Helen
of our global family to overcome Forde and the Jesuit Mission team
With your help, our partners are providing “It would have been very difficult for me to exist if the
the hardships brought about by the for their outstanding work, and
COVID-19 pandemic. life-saving employment and emergency relief situation like this continued,” says Hazaribag Dalit, Mr Turi, especially for all of Jesuit Mission’s
to vulnerable communities. who worked on school repairs and maintenance in the Lenity friends and supporters. It is only
I want to sincerely thank you for all With millions of cases recorded, COVID-19 continues Australia funded Coronavirus Relief Project. through your generosity that we
that you’ve done and I feel assured to devastate India. In an effort to contain the virus, are able to do what we do.
to know that together we will do our “These kind-hearted people have made my existence
there have been widespread lockdowns, which have
best to support our overseas partners possible. I am grateful to the donors who brought life The time has come for me to hand
left millions unemployed. Without jobs, people are
and communities as the pandemic and happiness on us who are very poor,” says another the baton to my Jesuit brothers –
leaving the large cities to return to their home villages.
continues to bring new challenges. participant Mr Kumar. Isaac Demase SJ and Fr Paul Horan
However, many rural communities have little or no
SJ – who will serve as Companions
I wish to farewell and thank my partner employment available, and countless families are
to Jesuit Mission in 2021. This year I
in mission – Fr Trung Nguyen SJ, Jesuit facing extreme poverty.
began my new role as Parish Priest
Mission’s Rector. The Provincial has It’s in these very challenging situations that we have of St Ignatius’ Church, Richmond
appointed Fr Trung as Parish Priest an even greater opportunity to serve. Lenity Australia and I humbly ask for your prayers.
of Richmond in Melbourne. We will all has been generously funding the work of Hazaribag-
greatly miss his gentle presence, his With gratitude and blessings,
based Jesuits and reaching out to the most vulnerable
humour and all the gifts he has brought communities affected by COVID-19. Life-saving support
to Jesuit Mission over the past five years. has been delivered to 3,174 households in Jharkhand
Finally, I welcome Isaac Demase SJ State, India – including 19,000 Dalit and Tribal women,
and Fr Paul Horan SJ who join us as men and children. Fr Trung Nguyen SJ
‘Companions’ to Jesuit Mission. Rector of Jesuit Mission
Stay well, and I hope to see you –
virtually or perhaps even in person – in
the New Year.
With thanks,
Helen Forde
ABOVE: Cash for work programs such as building wells brought ABOVE: Jesuits distribute emergency food packages and supplies to
Chief Executive Officer employment and purpose to indigenous and Dalit people as the people in Hazaribag.
pandemic continues. ABOVE: Fr Trung Nguyen SJ (left), Helen
Forde and Fr Paul Horan SJ.
2 Our actions in review Issue #626 Summer 2021 3
Myanmar Thailand A new beginning
Educating the next generation Love, care and companionship gave
prisoner Jadao a second chance at life.
An inspiring graduate is In 2019, Mary Lu graduated from St
Aloysius Gonzaga Institute (SAG) in
For the men and women
incarcerated in Thailand’s Jadao visiting the Jesuit
helping to give vulnerable Taunggyi, Myanmar with her Diploma in prisons, life is extremely Foundation Thailand
Education and Social Work. Now, Mary Lu difficult. Many have no office and sharing his
young people the is working with our local partner, Jesuit visitors and struggle
home-grown lychees to
show thanks.
education they deserve. Refugee Service Asia-Pacific (JRS), using with terrible loneliness,
her education to help transform the lives fear, depression and
of displaced refugees in her home region of hopelessness.
Kachin State. This was certainly the case
“My time at SAG helped me to understand my for Jadao, who received a life
purpose in life,” says Mary Lu. “I learnt about the sentence in 2010. However,
importance of service, which led me to work with everything started to change
people in need.” when he began receiving
visits from the Prison Services
Due to decades of neglect, there is a vital need Program, run by our local partner,
for education in Myanmar. With the generous Jesuit Foundation Thailand.
support of people like you, SAG has been working
to fill this gap. Thanks to the compassionate
support of people like you,
For twenty years the Institute has been providing the Prison Services Program
young people from the poorest backgrounds accompanies over 1,200
with the training they need to become teachers, prisoners in eight prisons
social workers and compassionate leaders. across Thailand, providing
With these skills, graduates can go out into their companionship and much-
home regions as teachers to improve access needed care, love, and pastoral
to education, rebuild communities and bring support. For Jadao, these visits
opportunity to the entire country of Myanmar. were transformational. “How
come you, who I never knew, With the help of Jesuit Mission his next chapter. “Now I can live
Mary Lu is delighted to be working with JRS, supporters, the Prison Services here and start my new life, not
helping to empower vulnerable communities come to visit me in prison?”
he would say. “There must be Program team was able to help so far from my parents and I can
through education. Currently, JRS is focused on Jadao with materials to repair his still take care of my father who is
providing quality education for children living a God!”
house. Now with firm walls and paralysed,” he says.
in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in When Jadao’s sentence was no more leaks, Jadao can begin
conflict-affected remote areas of Kachin State, her reduced, and he was released
home region. from prison in August 2019, the
For Mary Lu, this is challenging work, but she is Prison Services Program team
grateful to be able to use the transformational was there to accompany him
education that she received at SAG to help her on his journey to begin his new
community. She works each day with children life. Jadao returned to his home
ABOVE: Inspiring young SAG graduate, Mary Lu, is bringing village with a heart full of love,
education and hope for a brighter future to vulnerable in Banmaw IDP camp, promoting education and
providing essential supplies and invaluable hope. gratitude and determination.
students in IDP camps.
He started out living with his
“I love my job with Jesuit Refugee Service,” parents, as his own home had
says Mary Lu. “My fieldwork focuses on fallen into disrepair. With your support, Jadao
providing teaching and learning materials now has a weather-proof
for children who live in IDP camps, Jadao soon became the primary
home and a brighter
accompanying volunteer teachers in remote income earner in the family, but future.
areas and training teachers.” longed to repair his own home
and gain more independence.
4 Our actions in review Issue #626 Summer 2021 5
Celebrating 100!
Join us in wishing life-long Jesuit Mission supporter Pat Prendergast a very happy birthday.
Pat Prendergast Pat couldn’t have been prouder of her brother,
has had a lifelong and visited him in Hazaribag several times. “I was
connection with the privileged to occasionally do the Readings at Mass
Jesuits. Both she and in the little Hazaribag chapel,” Pat recalls. “When we
her brother Gavin were visited for Gavin’s Golden Jubilee we went to see
baptised and confirmed the Taj Mahal... I remember cooking sausages and
at St Ignatius’ Catholic mash at a Jesuit house on the way. It was a joyful
Church in Norwood, experience for us all!”
South Australia.
The same year her brother left for India, Pat began
Gavin went on to supporting Jesuit Mission. While raising her eight
become Fr Gavin children, she regularly attended the Maytime Fair in
O’Sullivan SJ, one of the Melbourne and has shown exceptional commitment
earliest young Australian to supporting our sisters and brothers living in the
Cambodia
ABOVE: Lifelong Jesuit Jesuits who accepted the global margins.
Mission supporter Pat call to serve vulnerable
(right) with Jesuit Mission communities in We’d like to express our most sincere thanks
Philanthropy Coordinator Hazaribag, India, in 1952. to Pat and wish her every blessing on her
Julie Sanders. 100th birthday. Congratulations Pat!
Raising up the forgotten
Your support is helping to open up a new world for people living with a disability.
“Before joining the program he As a result, people living Rattana is one of the 276 people
Thank You
As the COVID-19 pandemic
continues to impact our lives
Our thanks also to John XXIII
College who hosted a wonderful
could not feed himself. Now, with a disability often face living with a disability, who ‘Virtual Musical Soiree’; and
here in Australia, we offer our
after three years, he can eat discrimination and exclusion. KBO is working with today. His Loyola College, Watsonia who in
most heartfelt gratitude to
with a spoon,” says Rattana’s mother diligently follows the the midst of a very challenging
mother with joy. Rattana’s family had to cope advice of the program’s staff everyone in our community
year, took the time to host
with this discrimination, while and is delighted to see Rattana’s for the generosity and
several fundraising events. The
Rattana is six years old and lives also carrying the burden of continuous development. Along compassion you have shown funds raised by both schools will
with a growth disorder that poverty and the high level of with feeding himself, he is now to our vulnerable sisters and contribute to much-needed Jesuit ABOVE: Students of St Aloysius’
has inhibited his physical and care required by Rattana. But able to walk with the support brothers overseas. Mission COVID-19 relief programs. College walk in solidarity.
intellectual development. Before thanks to the kind support of of a rail installed in the family
connecting with our local Jesuit our wonderful Jesuit Mission home – and he recently voiced a A special thanks to the six Jesuit
partner, Karuna Battambang community, KBO’s ‘Enhancing new aspiration. schools who participated in
Organisation (KBO), life was very the Life of People with Jesuit Mission’s 2020 “Walking
challenging for the family. Disabilities’ program has been “Rattana wants to go in Solidarity” fundraiser. Over
able to bring new help and hope to school now,” says his 1,400 students and staff
In Cambodia, many people to the family. delighted mother. “When he walked, ran, rode – and for LEFT: Through
believe that having a child with sees children in their school those in Melbourne’s lockdown your support,
a disability is the consequence The program provides practical uniform, he points and says – cooked, to stand in solidarity emergency
of wrongs committed by the support and interventions to ‘I like.’” with people living in poverty food packages
family’s ancestors, and it is give people living with disabilities across Asia and Southern have been
unlucky to be in their company. the skills, medical care and help ABOVE: No longer excluded, six-year- Africa. An incredible $100,000
delivered
they need to live fuller, freer lives. old Rattana now has the opportunity to children
was raised for Jesuit Mission to in Ulmera,
for a brighter future.
support works overseas. Timor-Leste.
6 Our actions in review Issue #626 Summer 2021 7
Prayer for Critical Courage
Let us join together in the Cambodia, who demonstrate Prayer time: Twenty minutes.
prayer for Critical Courage, enormous levels of courage to
overcome the impossible, we • Take five minutes each for the
written by Fr Michael four steps.
Hansen SJ, National Director too pray for courage to meet the
many challenges that confront • Pause at the three dots…
of the First Spiritual
us and look for God to find a way.
Exercises Program. • If you are especially moved at
‘Wait for the Lord; be strong, and any of the steps, remain there
Like our vulnerable brothers and
let your heart take courage; wait for the rest of the prayer.
sisters living with a disability in
for the Lord (Psalm 27)!’
1. Immersion
I hold an object that symbolises the gift of
courage for me.
2. Desire
Where is spiritual courage present in my life? ...
Where is spiritual courage absent in my life? ...
What is the opposite of spiritual courage for
me? ...
I ask the Spirit of Courage to give me the gift of
courage, especially when I begin to lose heart
in the face of huge lifestyle changes, loss of
certainty and critical health care.
3. Choice
I choose to follow the way of courage, led by
the good spirit, toward God’s love... I reject the
way of fear and timidity, of being harassed by a
bad spirit...
I turn and walk in the contrary direction, from
fear, to courage, to peace...
4. Courage
I imagine the Spirit addresses me, saying, ‘Be
strong, take courage, I am with you.’
So I rest, for a while, and reflect on the whole
day, in the Spirit’s encouragement. I feel
braver…
Contact us:
Front cover picture PO Box 193
North Sydney 2059
Thanks to Jesuit Mission
supporters, people 02 8918 4109
living with a disability in
Cambodia can develop jesuitmission.org.au
life skills to live fuller and
freer lives. support@jesuitmission.org.au
Australian Jesuit Mission
Overseas Aid Fund
ABN: 47 915 006 050 Faith creating change
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