Global Education Director Robert Chura and Assistant Global Education Director Maria-Paz Campos have continued to provide students with cultural opportunities to collaborate with students across the globe, wrapping up the three-day Jesuit Global Activism Leadership Summit on March 27. 

The new event was created and organized by Chura and Campos in collaboration with the Jesuit Schools Network in addition to 19 other Jesuit schools, including schools from Zimbabwe, Egypt, and India. Students were tasked to work in groups to create an action plan on one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

Although this year has been particularly difficult for global education, Chura and Campos, like the Jesuit missionaries of the old, have overcome more than their fair share of difficulties and “have gone to the frontier” to offer their students culturally-enriching and friendship-building moments.

“There's a big mural that was created by Mr. Powers that says ‘called to the frontiers’ and when I saw that, as the guy who is wholly invested in Global Education, I see that fitting,” said Chura. “The Jesuits have always been called to the frontiers, to bring the good news and their ways to all peoples and all corners of the world. The Jesuits back in the 1800s did it via canoe, and we did it in the summit via Zoom.”

Beginning on Saturday, March 13, the event took place over the next two Saturdays for the next two in order to avoid conflicts with schooling. Despite students being asked to give up a day out of their weekend, 84 students and a little over 40 teachers participated in the Zoom calls, a number that Chura and Campos hope to expand as they continue to organize this event in the future.

“I think every teacher from all these other schools was just really impressed with their students. There was just an openness to them and a willingness to learn and participate, to give up their Saturdays for three weeks in a row to do this,” said librarian Lynne Casey.

The event kicked off with speeches from Director of Global Partnerships for the Jesuit Schools Network Catharine Steffens and UNA-USA Youth Observer for the United Nations Dustin Liu, which were meant to motivate and inspire the students before they were split into breakout groups for discussion.

“I thought it was super inspiring to hear what young people can do,” said Freddy Laux. “They really showed us that our voices matter as young people and that we can make change in the world.”

The students then broke into breakout groups to create a Jamboard presentation about their own culture and the places that they are from. Divided to ensure that no two students were from the same school in a breakout room, this discussion offered students an insight into others’ unique daily experiences.

“There was this boy from India, and he talked about like if you ever come to India you have to eat this and it's savory in some areas and sweet and other areas. He talked about it in such lofty terms,” said Casey. “I wish I would have recorded him because of how wonderful it was.”

On the second day, students solely worked on their action plans. Focused on either SDG two (zero hunger), SDG five (gender equality), or SDG seven (clean and affordable energy), each person brought interesting perspectives and ideas that reflected their own world experiences.

“There was a boy from Zimbabwe who actually said ‘I would buy seeds for the people to plant and farm.’ It's his way because he's so much closer to probably an agrarian society than most of the other students are,” said Casey. “Kids in St Louis might think we need to donate food to a food bank and then distribute, but he's saying we need to teach people how to grow their own food.”

In addition to the time given to the students on the second day to work on their action plans, students also communicated with each other throughout the week, a testament to the students’ willingness to fully embrace the cross-cultural opportunity.

“So my group made a WhatsApp, which we used to communicate outside of the summit,” said Laux.  “It was a true cultural experience. I was able to know about them outside of the work that we did together. I was able to understand their culture.”

The final day was devoted to presenting action plans and final student reflections on the leadership summit experience.

Chura, who participated in a similar event in the Summer where students presented action plans on SDGs, was surprised by how well the presentations, especially compared to the presentations by students given in during the Summer event.

“I was in charge of the presentations for the SDG two group, and the first presentation went off and I was like ‘my gosh that had to be the best of all the 12 presentations. But then the next group went, and that was just as good as good. And then the third group went, and that was just as amazing,” said Chura. “Then, I started wandering around and watching the SDG five and the SDG seven room and everywhere I went that first presentation that I saw was the standard.”

While all of the students’ participation in the event made it a success, Campos and Chura were especially impressed by all of the bilingual students and teachers who were able and willing to engage in intense conversation despite English not being their first language.

“I got to listen to some of the Chilean students too and I felt proud because they were talking about the political atmosphere in Chile right now and it's very hard to explain that in a foreign language because you need to know a lot of jargon on politics,” said Campos. “And I saw them struggling a little bit, but they made it happen, they got their message across.”

While the event was successful in regards to the projects that students put together, it also allowed true lasting friendship to form.

“There was a kid, Lorenzo, who had his hand up, and I had already called on him earlier in the day,” said Chura. “And so I was trying to get everybody a chance to talk, and he jumps on and says, ‘Can I just say one more thing, and he went through like some great stuff that he talked about and he said, and the biggest thing was I really feel like I made friends, I really feel like I made some friends in this program and that's the most important thing.’”