Ignatian Colleagues Gathering

Welcome to JSN’s 2024 Right to Education ICG landing page.

By changing education, we can change the world! (Pope Francis, Global Compact on Education)

In 2022, the Society of Jesus introduced the Global Ignatian Advocacy Network (GIAN), a collaborative effort among Networks within the Society of Jesus committed to advancing issues of justice. Because of its ability to “change the world,” as Pope Francis reminds us, one of the four Networks represented in the GIAN initiative is EduJustice whose focus is advancing the “Right to Education” across the globe.  Among its many values, GIAN’s EduJustice effort “assists educational institutions… to defend the Right to Education for all throughout their lives, and to promote equity for those most in need and to guarantee education as a common good.” This latest effort to “serve faith through the promotion of justice” echoes the call in 1980 of Pedro Arrupe, S.J., who said, “Jesuit schools are committed to educating any class of person without distinction. It cannot be otherwise.”

In the spirit of Fr. Arrupe and the current GIAN EduJustice Right to Education initiative, JSN is sponsoring a gathering of those in Jesuit education who serve underfunded and underserved students throughout North America. These efforts include, but are not limited to, Nativity Middle Schools, Cristo Rey High Schools, Jesuit Middle Schools, Jesuit Parish Schools, Pre-High School support programs, and High School support and scholarship programs. The goal of the Right to Education Ignatian Colleague Gathering is to support and advance these efforts, and to support and advance networks – ecosystems of support – within common geographical areas. As such, the ICG will focus on “supporting and advancing programs and networks that promote the Right to Education in North America.”  We therefore encourage leaders in current programs and those who are interested in learning more about current programs to attend this ICG. We also encourage teams from the same geographic area to coordinate their attendance so that the ecosystem presentations and conversations bear fruit back home.