As we know, Jesuits have a rich history of establishing institutions for the educational betterment of communities; XLRI Jamshedpur, Loyola College Chennai, Xavier University Bhubaneshwar and St. Joseph’s Bangalore are a few premier Indian Institutes run by Jesuits.
To do a visioning exercise on this great moment, on 6th and 7th Oct, heads of Jesuits run higher education institutions were under one roof in Kolkata for Annual Conference of Jesuit Higher Education Association of South Asia (JHESA). It was a gathering of 83 participants from all across the South Asia particularly from India, Nepal, Srilanka and Afghanistan.
The event was inaugurated by George Pattery, SJ, President, Jesuit Conference of South Asia. Alumni’s of St. Xavier’s Kolkata organized a warm welcome ceremony in honor of the participants. In the conference, Jesuits and collaborators deliberated on alignment and implementation of Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs) promulgated by the global Jesuit network, with a focus on youth and marginalised. Sunny Jacob, SJ (Coordinator and Secretary of Jesuit Educational Association, JEA), Denzil Fernandez, SJ (Director-Indian Social Institute, Delhi) were two main resource persons. Joye James, SJ (Secretary, JHESA) was the main organiser.