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Jesuit Commons: An Uncommon Approach to Serving the Poor

For immediate release:

November 18, 2010

A first-of-its-kind initiative is bringing higher education to some of the world’s poorest people and empowering a millions-strong network of individuals to collaborate on a range of poverty eradication projects. The initiative is sponsored by a newly formed global partnership called the Jesuit Commons, which aims to spur innovative collaborations that will benefit the world’s poorest communities.

The Commons, as it is otherwise known, has developed a two-pronged strategy to meet that objective. The first is an online web community, www.jesuitcommons.org, which enables individuals to donate money to worthy projects, donate expertise to poverty-fighting initiatives, or to join networks around common concerns.

Though the Commons has not even begun to publicize itself, dozens of projects and networks have already been launched by hundreds of individuals from multiple countries who discovered the Commons website during its “public testing phase.” Website visitors, for example, can join networks working on issues such as global ecology, education, literacy or advocacy. Or, visitors can make secure online donations to support a range of projects and schools run by the Jesuits across the developing world, ranging from a primary school in a Caracas slum to job training for impoverished women in rural India.

Anyone can visit the Commons website, search through existing projects, communicate directly with the project organizers in the developing world, make donations or offer expertise, or simply offer prayerful support.

“Jesuits are blessed with what may be the world’s most extensive educational and social service network, including hundreds of colleges and high schools, millions of alumni, and social service and pastoral agencies serving the world’s poorest,” said Chris Lowney, the president of the Commons. “Until now, however, no tool existed to help participants in this extraordinary network find colleagues around the world or form common work groups. We’ve pulled together some of best social media tools out there to create something unprecedented that will empower this network to reach its collaborative potential.”

The second prong of the strategy, which has been named “Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins”, is using online education technologies to deliver accredited university courses to refugees who have had no previous access to tertiary education. Dozens of refugee students at United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camps in Malawi and Kenya will begin coursework imminently. They will log onto computers powered by solar cells and begin interacting with Jesuit university faculty sitting halfway around the world.

The effort is part of a groundbreaking multi-lateral partnership. The Jesuit Refugee Service, which works alongside refugees in fifty countries, is providing on the ground coordination and expertise. Regis University in Denver is serving as the credentialing institution and administrative lead. And faculty from more than ten Jesuit universities have already stepped forward to grade application essays, teach courses, or provide other support.

Long term, the program will not only expand to other locations but also aspire to pioneer scalable, innovative models of delivering Jesuit-inspired higher education in the world’s lowest-resource settings.

“What is so exciting about the Commons,” says Mary McFarland, former dean of the School of Professional Studies at Gonzaga University who left her position to lead the implementation of the refugee education effort, “is that through our website and our refugee education programs, we will empower our Jesuit educational enterprises throughout the world to build a new and dynamic global network of support for those who are suffering from poverty.”

Lowney, a former Jesuit and author of the best-selling book, Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World, states that “This project is about people. People helping people. We need to reach out to those inspired by Ignatian values, and empower them to flex their remarkable power to make a real and lasting impact on the lives of impoverished people by getting involved in or supporting a Commons project. The Jesuits already have a global presence among the poor and have inspired millions of alumni around the world. We just need to help all these people to find each other.”

The idea of the Commons, which has 501© 3 status, was developed by Jesuits and lay colleagues at a worldwide conference on adult and continuing education where Jesuit Michael Smith, S.J., the rector of the Jesuit Theological College in Melbourne, Australia, presented a session on his work with refugees on the Thai-Burmese border. In 2006, seventeen refugees received undergraduate Diploma in Business degrees offered by Australian Catholic University (ACU). When several conference attendees heard how successful the Thai-Burma refugee program was, they became interested in developing a similar program on a broader scale. Hence, the seeds of the Jesuit Commons project began to emerge.

“The Commons project reflects one of the founding ideals of Jesuit education – educating those who have traditionally had no access to an education,” said Fr. Charles Currie, S.J., President of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) and a founding board member of the Jesuit Commons. “The access to education that we are providing is giving hope to individuals who have been displaced and oppressed and are looking for a better life. It’s great to be part of such a life-changing endeavor.”

This past April, Jesuits in higher education from around the world met in Mexico City for a global conference, “Networking Jesuit Higher Education for the Globalizing World: Shaping the Future for a Humane, Just, Sustainable Globe", which focused on frontier challenges such as poverty, sustainability and human rights as related to the work of Jesuit universities worldwide. In his keynote address to the delegates, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Adolfo Nicolas, S.J., powerfully endorsed the Jesuit Commons as an innovative way to address the disparities between rich and poor, and create a sense of solidarity with those struggling on the margins.

“Globalization has created new inequalities between those who enjoy the power given to them by knowledge, and those who are excluded from its benefits because they have no access to that knowledge,” said Fr. Nicolas in his talk. “Thus, we need to ask: Who needs the knowledge we can share, and how can we share it more effectively with those for whom that knowledge can truly make a difference, especially the poor and excluded? In this connection, the work-in-progress of the Jesuit Commons is extremely important, and it will require a more serious support and commitment from our universities if it is to succeed in its ambitious dream of promoting greater equality in access to knowledge for the sake of the development of persons and communities.”

To guide its efforts, the Jesuit Commons has assembled a Board of Directors from five continents, including university presidents, the head of the Jesuit Refugee Service, and other senior Jesuits.

“Today we launch the public rollout of our online community www.jesuitcommons.org,” said Lowney. “Millions of students, alumni, parishioners, and others have been touched by the Jesuits or their spirituality. We invite everyone to log on to the website, register themselves, and get involved in a network or support a project. Our potential to do good together is beyond what any one of us can imagine.”

For more information about the Commons, see www.jesuitcommons.org, or contact Robert Johnson, chief operations officer, at rjohnson@ajcunet.edu