Jesuit Refugee Service celebrates 30th anniversary

Deeply moved by the plight of the Vietnamese ‘boat people’ and refugees from the Horn of Africa in the late 1970’s, former Jesuit superior general, Fr Pedro Arrupe founded a network to respond to their urgent needs and to make their voice heard at international level. Thus the Jesuit Refugee Service was born 30 years ago to put into practise the Society of Jesus’ principle of ‘faith doing justice’ wherever the greatest needs are found.
Three decades on, JRS is working in nearly 60 countries across the globe, serving half a million refugees and internally displaced people of many different races, ethnic origins and religious beliefs. Listening closely to the refugees themselves, its goals are to provide education, health and other relief services, as well as addressing the root causes of poverty and displacement.
Jesuit Fr Mark Raper was involved in JRS from its early days and served for 10 years as its international director here in Rome. Today he lives in the Philippines where he works as president of the Jesuit Conference of the Asia Pacific region, yet wherever he travels around the world, he never misses an opportunity to catch up with former refugees or migrants who’ve helped to shape the work and mission of the Jesuit Refugee Service. Philippa Hitchen met up with him as he was giving a lecture at the Gregorian University to celebrate this 30^th anniversary….

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Further details of 30th anniversary celebrations on the JRS website
http://www.jrs.net/news_detail?TN=NEWS-20101110090311