Fondacio Asia - 1st Regional Project Meeting (2)

Continuing Our Story on Our Journey of Reflection and Discovery @ Bago, Myanmar

Day 2 – Tuesday, 5 November, 2013

The highlights of Day 2 was hearing out four invited Speakers. We had in our midst, Mr. J. D. Lovrenciear, Rev. Fr. Amal Raj, SJ and Mr. Shanon Khadka and Mr. Jerick Limoanco.

Mr. J. D. Lovrenciear, our first Speaker is a writer, consultant and trainer. He is the Chairman of Education, Training & Professional Development Bureau with the Malaysian national professional body, the Institute of Public Relations Malaysia (IPRM). He has been to over 15 countries throughout his thirty-year career providing consulting and training for corporations and has authored four books to date in the areas of communication, personal and professional development and public relations.

Rev. Fr. Amal Raj, despite his extremely tight schedules and work commitments in Myanmar, flew in from Bangkok to be with us. Father Amal is the Advisor to the Catholic Bishops Conference of Myanmar. He works in the social sectors, does training for the Church in Catholic Social Teaching and Social Mission in Myanmar. He also sits as advisor on Justice and Peace.

Teaming up, Mr. Shanon Khadka and Mr. Jerick Limoanco are resource persons from Gawad Kalinga in the Philippines, actively involved in Social Entrepreneurship with the Philippine icon of the poor, Mr. Tony Meloto. Both of them graduated from the country’s premier University, Ateneo de Manila, and have since been championing the cause for the transformation of the poorest of the poor sectors of humanity in the Philippines, through the organization famously known as “Gawad Kalinga”.

WE SHARE WITH ALL OUR FONDACIO MEMBERS AND FRIENDS AROUND THE GLOBE SOME OF THE KEY THOUGHTS FROM OUR SPEAKERS:

Mr. J. D. Lovrenciear speaking on 'Global and Regional Trends'

• The many traditional ways of doing businesses are being challenged, bringing new shifts to the way of life in Asia in relation to the global dimension. There is an “Asianization of Asia” taking place out there in the region, moving from multiple national identities to an Asian identity.
• The miracles and promises of capitalism and communism seem to be creating a whole world of painful experiences and harsh realities with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Progress as we had come to know all these decades is leaving doubts even in the minds of the rich.
• Meanwhile, the promises in Asia of a great new future for the world, poses new challenges for Fondacio. We have to gear up as we look at how to capitalize on these new trends, considering that we are a movement of different Asian nations. The critical need is being able to understand and find ways to engage with others within and around the region to build relationship anchored on trust, to stay connected on the global network of communities as we aim to fulfill our Mission objectives.

Rev. Father Amal speaking on ‘Leadership – in a Changing 
World’

• Reminders about leadership and response that need to be rooted in Catholic Social Teaching. We can easily be reduced to part-time Christians if we just practice “Word and Worship” without “Witness”.
• The need to keep asking “Is my response motivated by faith? Is my faith challenged by the context?”
• To be a Christian is always to be on the edge. This means that it has to be a conscious choice we make every day in our lives.
• There is a framework about reviewing our work. We need to go through this motion which involves four questions:

* What is happening? (Our Experience)
* Why is it happening? (Our Analysis)
* What does it mean? (Our Theological Reflection)
* How shall we respond? (Our Response)

Should we move from ‘Experience’ to ‘Analysis’ to ‘Response’, skipping ‘Theological Reflection’, then it means we are not Christian in our Mission but operating like an NGO.

• In Fondacio, unlike NGOs, this theological reflection helps us to remain Christ-centered in all that we do.
• There is a need to be ensured that Projects are not just fund-based, but are instead faith-based.
• Given the fast changing picture of Asia today, it calls us to be attentive to the way we respond in our respective communities.

Fr. Amal reminded Fondacio as a lay movement, to recover the priesthood of Christ as he lived it before Maundy Thursday, where the altar is wherever we are. Our framework should be Jesus Christ and his message.

Mr. Shanon Khadka and Mr. Jerick Limoanco present their Gawad Kalinga Project 






On the 2nd part of the day, we were introduced to Gawad Kalinga (GK), an NGO whose vision is to help end poverty by 2024. They do this by engaging with different sectors of society and working in a collaborative way using themselves as connectors to build social enterprises. They shared GK’s model of a farm village university as a holistic end-to-end initiative to work towards realizing their vision.

The GK presentation stretches through into Day 3.
Keep a look out for this ‘impossible dream turning into reality’ in the Philippines.
Updates are coming your way TOMORROW.