It’s not every day that professors get to work side-by-side with their graduates on a mutual goal in a shared field. Fr. Hans Zollner SJ had the chance to do just that in Indonesia July 4-12, 2024. He was invited to Timor-Leste and to Bali, Indonesia to lead safeguarding workshops. It was in Bali that he had the chance to hear from five IADC alumni and three alumni of the Gregorian’s Institute of Psychology regarding their work in the field of safeguarding in various Asian countries – including Myanmar, China, Cambodia – where enormous cultural differences and many political, military, and social challenges exist.
The Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific’s (JCAP) five-day workshop in Bali – two facilitated by Fr. Zollner – offered all attendees the chance to share their experiences, learn more about how to implement safeguarding measures in these difficult circumstances, and pray together. The key take-away for all was the assertion that the only way to be effective in keeping the people in their regions and missions safe is by working together, across borders, and sharing their own experiences with one another about how they’ve managed to enculturate in their own environments what many learned during their time in classrooms at the Gregorian.
The workshops in Timor-Leste, on the other hand, brought together both Jesuits and Loreto Sisters to discuss safeguarding in an area that has been struggling with years of social unrest and military violence, as well as to discuss the fallout of colonization and what that meant for Timorese natives. The sisters and Jesuits took the opportunity of being together to discuss how they can make their country a safer place for all people.
