Xaverian Missionaries

The new millennium has seen major changes in the socio-political landscape of the entire planet. 9/11 has impacted massively world realities. Afghanistan, Iraq, War on Terrorism, distrust between Islam and the West, the rise of Muslim fundamentalism, the plight of Africa, Globalisation and issues of world debt and trade. All of these have contributed to radically alter the consciousness of the world community.

Nearer to home the UK Government decision to participate in the invasion of Iraq has aroused deep hostility and has polarised and radicalised whole sections of the population, particularly in the Muslim and Asian Communities. Opposition to the War mobilised millions of protesters nation-wide and has politicised previously passive citizens. The threat of reprisals against UK targets has focussed the public’s awareness of and interest in the world’s affairs as never before.

These factors, Globalisation and the ever-present Global Village, present us missionaries with unique opportunities to be engaged directly with our own skills, experience and charism with our young people and local communities. At the same time they are a challenge to us to plan and co-ordinate our work strategically. The work of educating and training our young people to be responsible citizens in our global community is an urgent, appropriate and relevant Xaverian Missionary endeavour.

Sometimes the degree of diversity in today’s global society can lead to insecurity and even conflict. The world needs people who are capable of dialogue. But genuine dialogue can only take place between people with respect for each other’s beliefs, background and culture.

The Global Education Project is an exciting project that aims to respond to this need by:

• Recognising the reality of global interdependence
  promoting the idea that diversity is a good thing; it aims at making connections across culture and faith with individuals, schools and communities.
• greater understanding and tolerance of different faiths and ethnic origin
• facilitating change and empowering action locally and globally, at grass roots level, to transform all vestiges of deprivation, disadvantage, injustice, inequality, discrimination, prejudice etc.
• helping people to develop the awareness and skills that allow them to enter into positive dialogue with one another
• encouraging people to embrace and explore their own identity and accept and appreciate the identity of others
• developing a mission and global spirituality to sustain and support those engaged in work of solidarity and global justice

The Project is animated by a powerful vision of what the social cohesion of the 21st Century will consist of, and how it will come about. Every aspect of its work focuses on this vision and tries to make it a reality. The purpose of the Global Education Project, then, is to bring people together to explore their experience and learn from each other; to answer an urgent need for security and hope; and to recognize the signs of the times, to weave a holistic, coherent interpretation out of them, and to work towards a creative response at a local scale, which has global perspective. It is our modern attempt to realise the dream of Conforti “to make the world a single family”