Regional Initiatives
As JCoR, we focus our efforts on justice and peace work in three regions: East & Southern Africa, India, and Latin America & the Caribbean. In each of these regions, our workshops are tailored to local realities, priorities, concerns, levels of experience in systemic change work, and levels of existing inter-congregational collaboration. Workshops are comprised of in-person dialogues, a follow-up campaign to advance a specific justice issue, and a period of facilitated communication among participants to foster long-term collaboration and activation of additional congregation members in justice and peace work.
JCoR workshops adhere to the following guiding principles:
Diversity:
– of congregations: seek attendance by members of multiple JCoR member congregations/organizations; dedicate workshop time to charism/history sharing and exchange of contact information (especially among those working in similar ministries); establish prayer partnerships across congregations and ministries to encourage ongoing communication and spiritual relationship
– of cultures: open workshops with acknowledgement of differing backgrounds and perspectives, including between those living in their country of origin and those who have migrated from another country and those coming from different cultures within the same country
– of generations: seek participation of members of different age groups within each congregation wherever possible
Mutuality: develop workshop programs as series of dialogues designed to
– bring content from UN experience to region,
– facilitate learning on part of UN-based members and coordinators about local obstacles and previously discovered strategies,
– facilitate application of new information learned on both sides to priority issue(s) for the regional context, and
– design a context-specific plan for ongoing communication and coordination among participants to execute a systemic change campaign on chosen issue(s).
Flexibility/adaptability: engage in a “listening tour” to tailor the basic workshop design and degrees of background information offered to the varying degrees of experience or familiarity of Religious in each workshop context with various components of the subject matter
Practicality: emphasize in initial invitation and throughout all communications with workshop participants that active participation in both dialogues and a follow-up advocacy campaign are integral to the JCoR capacity-building workshop; introduce principle to participants in spirit of Pope Francis’ assertion that “A prayer that does not lead you to practical action for your brother—the poor, the sick, those in need of help, a brother in difficulty—is a sterile and incomplete prayer” (Angelus, 7/21/13)
Sustainability: seek, through an application form, participants who have already been engaged in some justice work and/or demonstrate a keen interest in engaging in such work in the future; utilize a train-the-trainers model to initiate participants as local organizers/coordinators, decentralize leadership to locally-based organizers/coordinators, engage leadership to encourage crystallization of advocacy efforts within congregational program structure
Replicability: establish clear understanding and materials that allow participants to conduct their own dialogues and conduct further campaigns