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NETWORK Jul-15-2008 (880 words) xxxn
Network aims to coordinate universities' response to global crises
By Beth Griffin
Catholic News Service
NEW YORK (CNS) -- While many of their colleagues were getting a jump on summer jobs and vacations, students and faculty from 20 Jesuit-run U.S. universities met at Fordham University in New York to discuss ways to coordinate their responses to humanitarian crises around the globe.
The workshop was the first national initiative of the Jesuit Universities Humanitarian Action Network. Held June 20-22, it drew 156 students and 20 faculty members.
The network, known as JUHAN, was created by Fordham University and the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs, according to Brendan Cahill, the institute's administrative director.
"JUHAN seeks to coordinate the response of its member universities to create an efficient, well-informed response to humanitarian crises, as well as to raise awareness on campuses across the nation on the meaning of humanitarian response and its implication for the Jesuit ideology of 'men and women for others,'" he said.
Workshop topics ranged from the concept of humanitarianism and the motivations, justifications, consequences and complexities of humanitarian intervention to logistics, health, sanitation, cross-cultural issues, security and media relations.
Cahill said the workshop is intended to be a biannual event, open to members of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States.
Cahill said the participants were "enthusiastic, bright and dedicated people. They're coming in with their eyes wide open."
He said the program ended with each school's delegation describing an action plan to take back to their campus. "There's so much work they can do right now," said Cahill. "There's a lot of different ways of coordinating efforts and serving without rolling up their sleeves (overseas)."
The workshop was an opportunity to glean "information on how to grow and be trained in this field for those who are interested in making it their life's work," he added.
As a group, participants committed to establishing a Web site for the network to share curriculum and other ideas, with a potential for distance-learning opportunities.
Individual action plans stressed the importance of raising awareness on campuses of global crises and coordinating students' actions to make a significant impact.
Shane Young, a junior at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, said the highlight of the experience was "seeing the passion and hope on everyone's faces" and seeing that so many other students "share the same passion about changing the world."
When school reopens, Young will address incoming freshmen about what he learned, offer a similar presentation to upperclassmen and help organize an awareness week focusing on displaced persons and refugees worldwide, health and migration issues, and the local situation of homelessness in Wheeling.
Young said all of the speakers "understood the education we're getting. As a Jesuit student, there's a commitment to a faith that does justice. Our motto 'educating men and women for service to others' means that this is not the final stop: We have to go out and preach it to others."
Steven Lin, a junior at Seattle University, said the workshop "opened my eyes to the work of Catholic organizations like Jesuit Refugee Service and dispelled some myths I had."
He explained he thought refugee camps were idyllic sanctuaries, but learned that "no one really wants to be there. It's the last place when they're running away from natural disasters or wars."
Lin, who is from Myanamar, said he decided to attend the workshop because he hopes to return to his country next winter to help the ongoing effort to rebuild after the May cyclone. His family was not directly affected by the cyclone.
His school's action plan includes raising awareness on campus about refugees and relief operations and working with a refugee family living in Seattle. He said workshop participants have already set up a group on Facebook, a social networking site on the Internet, to share information and resources.
Lin, a biology major with an interest in practicing medicine overseas, said he could see himself working in refugee camps or health clinics with Jesuit Refugee Service.
The network's workshop took place concurrently with the 25th four-week program of the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs. On June 27, 46 aid workers from 27 countries received an international diploma in humanitarian assistance from the institute.
Cahill said the institute was founded in 2001 to "bridge the gap between the theoretical and the applied in humanitarian affairs."
Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann addressed the graduates. Father d'Escoto is a retired Maryknoll missioner who has not been able to exercise his priestly ministry since 1985 because of his political activity. He served as Nicaragua's foreign minister from 1979-90, and was elected president of the U.N. General Assembly June 4.
Father d'Escoto told the graduates that "the one single virtue that is absolutely indispensable if there is going to be a future is solidarity. We have to get away from the mad insane logic of me and mine to the logic of we and ours."
The priest said the cross "leads us to risk ourselves for others. You have to have that clear motivation in your lives. Pray that you continue to cultivate the desire to assist those in need and hope that that desire multiplies and grows."
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Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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