may 2014
|
magis
09
|
| GREATER GOOD |
knowing the inspiration
behind fr arrupe centre
“I have spent two years of my life listening to the community
and understanding what they wanted. Because we always think
that we know what the community wants and what the solu-
tions should be; but in reality we don’t even know the surface
of it. Therefore I spent two years travelling and learning about
the problems of the community. The solutions arrived at should
be relevant to them. And the second thing is ownership — they
should own the solutions that you may come up with after
having a discussion with them. As the solution that you may offer
might not be the solution that they want.”
Mukti Bosco
Co-Founder, Healing Fields Foundation
“Self-reliant communities; it almost sounds an impossibility.
When we speak about communities we speak about total commu-
nities, where there is total intrusion and where there is no extru-
sion. In India in our villages we have practiced extrusion forever.
Extrusion of women in general, extrusion of the scheduled castes,
extrusion of ST, extrusion of poor, extrusion of widows. The
bane of our society is extrusion. If you want to have a self-reliant
community then this has to be changed into an intrusive society.
Easier said than done! I think for an intrusive society, communi-
ties will have to go through experiential learning of intrusion.
Without experiential learning of intrusion centuries of extrusion
— which has brought in a mentality that the extruded feels that
it is our fate and in next birth if I am born as a Brahmin I would
extrude the other or hope that in the next birth I am born as a man
so that I can extrude women —
is not possible to remove.”
Dr Joe Madiath
Executive Director, Gram Vikas
Community Managed
Healthcare System
Building Self-Reliant
communities
Fr Arrupe
Center for Ecology and Sustainability (FACES),
which organises the annual NCSE conference in collaboration
with SIGMA, was inaugurated in 2012 at XLRI Jamshedpur
campus.
To understand the activities and the ideology behind the
formation of FACES it is important to first know who Fr Pedro
Arrupe was.
Fr Arrupe served as the superior general of the Jesuits dur-
ing 1965-83. His work had wider societal impact and in 1973
his contributions to the society were featured in
Time
.
He was working as a missionary in sub-urban Hiroshima in
1945 when the atom bomb was dropped. He had left with the
first rescue unit for the disaster area. He used his medical skills
(as he was studying to become a doctor but did not complete it)
to save the wounded and the dying. In 1970s he was so moved
by the plight of those adversely affected by the Vietnamese
war that he founded a Jesuit Refugee Services, which now is
spread across 50 countries, providing education and other
emergency assistance to the displaced people. As a superior
general he had the bold vision of promotion of justice in the
world, as a central aspect of faith.
The Fr Arrupe centre was established with the same mission:
to promote practices and policies which would help create an
environmentally, economically and socially just society.
It is a multi-disciplinary centre that aims to provide thought
leadership to promote policies, practices and dialogue which
have impact on holistic and sustainable development of society
and enterprises. The centre engages in three key activities
-- knowledge creation (through undertaking and sponsoring
research on and documentation of sustainable programmes,
enterprise models and practices), knowledge dissemination
(through conferences and roundtables to provide a platform for
sharing sustainable models of development) and knowledge
application (by providing thought leadership for embedded
sustainability through consultancy / MDP / capacity building
programs).
