Do You Need a Map?

Hopeworks is a youth training program in Camden, New Jersey, founded by two Lutheran churches and the Jesuits’ Holy Name Parish and run by Jesuit Fr. Jeff Putthoff.

Hopeworks opened in 2000 to train young adults in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, which can graphically map a neighborhood and display property use, lot size, occupancy/vacancy, and tax information, even pinpointing locations of streetlights, trees, and mailboxes. The result is a wealth of information for community development and government agencies looking for the “big” picture of a neighborhood. Hopeworks has, for instance, created a demographic map of the percentage of those living under the poverty line in communities in St. Louis.

The program also offers nonprofit web design; some recent clients include Camden Resources (www.camdenresources.org), Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition (www.gpuac.org), and the City of Camden (www.ci.camden.nj.us).

Hopeworks’s goal is to reduce the high-school dropout rate for African-American and Hispanic youth in Camden and to create opportunities for those who have dropped out. Mentors at Hopeworks help trainees to complete GEDs, enroll in college, and land jobs. For more information go to www.hopeworks.org

Brooklyn Jesuit Prep Opens

Principal Sr. Carol Beairsto, RGS, ushers in a new era for Jesuit education in Brooklyn.

Since 1972, when the Jesuits’ Brooklyn Prep closed, the borough lacked a Jesuit school. That changed in September, when Brooklyn Jesuit Prep swung open its doors to offer economically disadvantaged boys and girls, fifth through eighth graders, education in the Jesuit tradition once again.

Founded on the Nativity school model, Brooklyn Prep offers small classes (ten to twelve students each), a long day and an extended year, a summer camp, academic and financial support through high school, and assistance with college applications and financial aid applications.

The school’s stress on parental involvement and its low tuition will help students to prepare for high school and beyond and to break the cycle of poverty.

www.brooklynjesuit.org

Teach In

An estimated 10,000 people, including 2,000 from Jesuit high schools, colleges, and universities, gathered at Ft. Benning, Georgia, in November to call for the closing of the former School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which trains members of Latin American militaries.

Members of the Jesuit institutions took part in the Ignatian Family Teach-In to commemorate the fourteenth anniversary of the murders of Jesuits in El Salvador, in which SOA graduates were implicated.

New Jesuit Cardinal

Among the 30 cardinals Pope John Paul II named in September was Jesuit Fr. Tomas Spidlik. Though Fr. Spidlik, at age 83, is over the age when cardinals can vote to elect a new pope, the Czech expert on Eastern Christian spirituality continues to write, lecture, and serve as spiritual director of Rome’s Centro Aletti, where he lives, and the Czech College in Rome.

Fr. Spidlik says he accepted the nomination “not as a recognition for myself, but for the Catholics of Eastern Europe and the work of making their rich heritage known.” He said he gave thanks to God for the many opportunities he has had “to do a little bit for the union of the churches of East and West and to make known the spiritual treasures of the East.”

“The pope loves to talk about the church breathing with two lungs—the traditions of East and West—and we are in full agreement,” he said.

At the United Nations

British Robinson, director of Social and International Ministries for the Jesuit Conference in Washington, D.C., addressed the United Nations General Assembly in October at the request of the Vatican mission to the United Nations.

Ms. Robinson took part in a symposium, sharing the dais with Secretary General Kofi Annan, New York’s Cardinal Edward Egan, and Canadian Senator Douglas Roche, on the 40th anniversary of Pope John XXIII’s encyclical “Pacem in Terris.”

“Where is equal time for peace?” she asked in her address “The Hope for Peace in Our Time and Place,” encouraging her audience to become “embedded peacemakers.”

Jesuit Ring Found in Maine

Emerson Baker, professor of history at Salem State College in Massachusetts, discovered a Jesuit ring during an archaeological dig this past summer in South Berwick, Maine. Such rings were brought over in very large numbers by Jesuit missionaries and distributed among those they were proselytizing. A handful of Jesuit rings have been found at sites of Indian villages and French trading posts in Maine, but this is the first to be uncovered at an English site.

“Jesuit rings from the 1600s are not that rare,” says Baker. “The rarity is its location at an English home.” The ring was found during the excavation of what is believed to be an outbuilding at the homestead of Humphrey Chadbourne, a fur trader. Bearing the “IHS” inscription, the ring was most likely dropped by a Native American, says Baker.

—Portsmouth Herald

Kenya Craft Shop: Ten Years and Going Strong

In 1993 the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) opened the Mikono Refugee Craft Shop in Nairobi, Kenya. Mikono, Swahili for hands, helps refugees who have a talent for making handicrafts by providing them with a sales outlet for their creativity. Mikono has witnessed a significant improvement in the lives of many refugees, especially widows and widowers with children, by allowing them to use their talents to earn a living.

The project also assists refugees, who come from eight countries, by offering seminars and workshops on business and management skills and personal development. Visit the JRS Mikono website to get an idea of the handicrafts offered: www.jrs.net/jrs/mikono

—JRS Dispatches