Ignite Community Youth Organizing Leadership and Training Seminar

DREAM | ORGANIZE | LEAD

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there “is” such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

These turbulent times disclose our need for a discipline of the spirit. To respond to our world we must get free to love. That involves personal transformation, which includes coming to terms with evil in the world and in ourselves, accepting forgiveness and changing

-Fr. Dean Brackley, SJ

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

In the early days of September, 2019 more than 270 members of the Jesuit family of Jesuits West Province gathered for several days at Santa Clara University. In his opening address, our Provincial, Rev. Scott Santarosa, SJ said, and I quote: “are there enough injustices against the people we love to consider flexing our Jesuit muscle again and regularly. The beloved is there before us: the immigrant, the gang member, the hungry, the incarcerated, the single mother separated from her deported husband. Are we offering to the beloved all the gifts we are truly in possession of? Can we also offer our power?” Given our national reality, we add to Fr. Santarosa’s address: “the violence, racism and injustices of those whose lives are lost to atrocities committed against black lives in this country” and “those impacted by COVID-19 especially the most vulnerable among us.” In those early days of September at the dawn of a new academic year, we never could have imagined all the things that we have seen and are experiencing as a country.

As rector of La Universidad Centroamericana, José Simeon Cañas (UCA), the Jesuit martyr, Fr. Ellacuria, SJ stated that the university would offer “a response to the historical reality of the country; that of contributing to social change in the country” (McCarthy, 2014). We have an explicit call to respond to our historical reality in a manner that contributes to a social change in the country that brings together service and justice. Each of us as a community of learners in our Jesuit secondary schools have been called through the Universal Apostolic Preferences to Accompany the Young in the Creation of a Hope-Filled Future. Imagine what our schools might look like if we used a collective power of community youth organizing to use our institutions as spaces open to youthful creativity and laboratories of practice to dream, organize and lead in the social ministry of community organizing?

In keeping with our commitment to the vision of our provincial, a team of Ignatian educators representing all levels of our educational network have come together to coordinate the development of a pilot Community Youth Organizing Leadership and Training Seminar. Ignite will introduce a cohort of young people to some of the basic capacities central to community organizing work, including outreach, listening, building, relationships, issue development, strategy and campaign development, leadership development and movement building through readings and workshop style exercises with a desired outcome that they work on a project / campaign and share the final capstone at a spring reunion. Given our national reality: “we are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there “is” such a thing as being too late.”

With Gratitude--the Planning Committee:

Sara Brabec, Director of Christian Service, Jesuit High School, Sacramento

Rachel Ford, Director of Christian Service, Seattle Preparatory

Kelly O’Neill, Director of Campus Ministry, Cristo Rey, San Jose

Amanda Montez, Parent Engagement Coordinator, Sacred Heart Nativity Schools, San Jose

Justine Javier, Director of Campus Ministry, Cristo Rey High School in Sacramento

Jesse Rodriguez, Director of the Center for Service and Justice, Loyola High School of Los Angeles

William Rutt, Director of Ignatian Service and Advocacy, Brophy College Preparatory

Jamal Adams, Director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion, Loyola High School of Los Angeles