See you in Loyola!

Who are the people coming to Loyola for the General Workshop? Some of them we know already, others we are looking forward to meeting for the first time in June.

From India, we will be joined by D.M. Solomon SJ, the director of the JOHAR Human Resources Development centre in the state of Jharkhand; Walter Fernandes SJ, the former director of the North Eastern Social Research Centre (NESRC) in the state of Assam; Trevor Miranda SJ, the director of Reach Education Action Programme (REAP) in the Mumbai metropolitan region; Xavier Jeyaraj SJ, the coordinator of the Jesuit Social Apostolate for all of South Asia (from Delhi); and M.K. George SJ, the director of the Indian Social Institute in Bangalore.

From the huge Asia Pacific region, Pedro Walpole SJ, the director of Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC) will join us from the Philippines; Julie Edwards, the director of Jesuit Social Services will come from Australia; and Denis Kim SJ, the coordinator of the Jesuit Social Apostolate for Asia Pacific will arrive from Korea.

Our participants from Latin America will be Rafael Moreno SJ, the director of Jesuit Migrant Services for Latin America and the Caribbean who joins us from Mexico; José Alejandro Aguilar SJ who directs the Programa Suyusama for sustainable regional development in Colombia; Mauricio García-Duran SJ, the director of the Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (CINEP), also in Colombia; César Torres SJ who is currently doing his Tertianship and is originally from Peru; and Lucía Rodríguez and Luis Ugalde SJ who are both from Spain but are representing organisations in Latin America: Fe y Alegría and the Latin American association of universities run by the Jesuits (AUSJAL), respectively.

Jim Hug SJ, David Hollenbach SJ and Tom Greene SJ will fly in from the United States. Jim and Tom are based in Washington, at the Center of Concern (where Jim is the director) and the Jesuit Conference of the United States (where Tom is the coordinator of the social apostolate) respectively. David is the director of the Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice.

Among our African participants, there are two from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Ferdinand Muhigirwa SJ, the director of the Centre d’Etudes Pour l’Action Sociale (CEPAS), and Augustin Kalubi SJ, the responsible for formation of the Central African province. The third African, Leonard Chiti SJ, is the director of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) in Lusaka, Zambia.

And last but not least, the European participants: José Ignacio García SJ is the director of the Jesuit European Office (OCIPE) in Brussels, Belgium; Alicia Alemán works in the Advocacy department of ALBOAN, the Jesuit NGO in Basque Country, Spain (so she will be quite at home in Loyola!); and Luis Muñoz SJ is the Migration Desk Officer at the Conference of European Provincials in Brussels.