SUPPORT ACCOMPANIMENT GREATER RESPONSE EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP JRS/USA 2017 ANNUAL REPORT JRS/USA 2017 ANNUAL REPORT PUBLISHED JULY 2018 CONTENTS Introduction PG 2 Greater Accompaniment PG 6 Greater Education PG 9 Greater Partnership PG 16 Greater Welcome PG 19 JRS/USA’s Financial Information PG 25 Greater Support PG 31 INTRODUCTION 2 Jesuit Refugee Service/USA is pleased to Now, as I take on the leadership of JRS/USA present our 2017 Annual Report. 2017 was an at a time when the organization is poised to important year for the organization and for the respond to even more critical needs of refugees, work we do to accompany, serve, and advocate I look forward to working with you to use this for refugees. 2017 marked a year filled with inspiration and momentum to take the work we challenges for refugees: hateful rhetoric; fewer do even further. refugees admitted into the United States than at any other time in the program’s history; Thank you for being part of our JRS/USA family protected status of migrants revoked; and more and for generously responding to a greater call war and conflict spurring further displacement. to serve others. But you, our supporters, responded in a greater way than ever before. 2017 was also the year that you took action – sharing your resources, advocating to your legislators, and sharing stories of refugees with your networks and Joan Rosenhauer communities. Because of your responses, we Executive Director were able to send more resources directly to Jesuit Refugee Service/USA JRS projects around the world than ever in our history. This year’s annual report reflects this – the greater, or the Jesuit ideal of “the magis.” As a member of the Board of Directors and a leader at another Catholic organization responding to refugees, I saw this greater response and felt inspired because I was a part of it. Joan Rosenhauer is the Executive Director of Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. In this role, Joan leads the organization to fulfill its mission – to accompany, serve, and advocate for refugees and displaced people. As a member of JRS’s global Senior Leadership Team, she and nine other Regional Directors of the Jesuit Refugee Service represent the organization in over 50 countries. 3 CALLED TO GREATER SERVICE By Rev. Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J. The number of refugees and forcibly displaced Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society people has continued to grow over the past of Jesus, wrote his Spiritual Exercises year. Yet the increasingly harsh rhetoric remains as a manual of interlocked prayers and as heartless as it is contrary to our country’s meditations to help people do the “exercises” real tradition and basic values. that can help them find their way to following God’s reason for creation: that we might live Fortunately, there are representative voices generously in the world and thus come to and organizations responding bravely and share eternally in the love of God. generously to the crisis. Jesuit Refugee Service is proud to be among them – and to have so Deeply embedded in the key early meditation many friends and supporters, greater in number called the “Principle and Foundation” is what and generosity than ever before, joining us. Jesuits crystallize in the notion of the magis, namely, that anyone reflecting deeply on the This crisis, involving every one of us writing meaning of life should “desire and choose Photographer Sean Lengell and reading this Annual Report, is a threat to Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J. is the Director of Mission for Jesuit only that which is more conducive to the Refugee Service/USA. Fr. O’Donovan poses with children he our humanity itself. Can we really call ourselves end for which we were created.” Ignatius met at the Kino Border Initiative, a partner organization of JRS/ human beings if we watch from the sidelines as requires that the Society of Jesus be based USA in Nogales, Arizona. this tragedy unfolds? What will be said of us by on a foundation “that may always be done generations to come if we are mere spectators which is conducive to the greater service of when lives are being threatened? Put more God and the universal good.” He holds before positively, what is the call for help in their his fellow Jesuits “the greater service of God various languages, coming from these men, and the more universal good” or “the greater women, and children (the majority!) who are divine honor and the greater universal good.” human beings – and God’s children – just as His lapidary principle is: “The more universal much as we are? the good is, the more it is divine.” 4 The service of God and humanity to which Jesuits are called, in other words, is greater service, God’s greater glory through the care of people in great need. It is, if you will, a spirituality of holy ambition for humanity. The call to service that always grows wider and deeper than we expect, the ring of the magis, seems especially vital today. The great Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by the Nazis for his opposition to Hitler, wrote of Christ as “the man for others.” Rev. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, Founder of Jesuit Refugee Service, memorably called for all graduates of Jesuit schools to be “men [and women] for others.” Many friends today feel called to a greater service and a solidarity with the displaced of the world – that is not just an attitude, but an active, practical conviction of the inviolable dignity and value of every human being, each a unique member of God’s beloved human family. JRS seeks to live out that solidarity through humble but active commitment. Photographer Albert Gonzalez Farran A girl has her lunch at the Gulawein school, in Maban, South Sudan. Around 200 children attend this school supported by JRS, which is building new classrooms, providing daily food, and paying teachers. 5 GREATER ACCOMPANIMENT Accompanying refugees is critical to our mission. This year, thanks to generous contributions from our friends and supporters, JRS/USA was able to support accompaniment. around the world. 6 ACCOMPANYING TO PROTECT YOUTH Many children in Soacha, Colombia, risk identification, and self-protection are exposed to violence and illegal mechanisms to children and adolescents. activities that make them susceptible to Trainings are also offered to parents and exploitation, involvement in drug use, guardians to improve their protective roles and human trafficking. Limited access and strengthen risk mitigation strategies. to economic opportunities, public services, and education exacerbates This project has united people from their vulnerability and denies them full different cultural backgrounds, while access to their rights. Unfortunately, providing a safe space for open there are criminal groups that take conversations among youth to reflect advantage of the underdeveloped on life and take part in positive activities presence of the Colombian government they enjoy. It has also fostered leadership to carry out illegal activities with teens among young adults who promote and adolescents. purposeful, peaceful actions in the community. A program participant, To address this problem, thanks to the 15-year-old Robinson, states, “When I generosity of JRS/USA supporters, entered the JRS program I began to value JRS introduced Pastoral Action for my life, because I did not value it before. Spiritual Guidance of Adults and Youth The citizen training has allowed me to in Colombia. This program is designed reflect on how to elevate myself in life.” to provide stability and opportunities for pastoral accompaniment to Photographer Jesuit Refugee Service LAC displaced populations and vulnerable Children in Soacha participate in a children’s workshop on youth in Soacha. The project offers Children’s Day as part of the Pastoral Action for Spiritual workshops on human rights, citizenship, Guidance Program. The workshop helps children develop conflict prevention and mitigation skills. (above) Children hold up signs advocating for children’s rights and child protection. (below) Children make a sign to celebrate Children’s Day. 7 ACCOMPANIMENT IN DETENTION Jesuit Refugee Service/USA’s Detention Chaplaincy Program provides pastoral and religious assistance to non-citizens detained by the Department of Homeland Security in five federal detention centers – in Florence, Arizona; Miami, Florida; Batavia, New York; and El Paso and Los Fresnos Texas. In 2017, JRS provided more than 106,784 services to 11,384 migrants through this program. The program focuses on the dignity of each detainee, offering opportunities to not only worship and practice religion, but find hope and healing. “They'll always say, 'oh thank you for spending this time with me. Thank you for sitting with me,'” says Sister Lynn Allvin, OP, who works as a chaplain in the Florence Service Processing Center in Florence, Arizona. “It's like I had given them this gift and I felt so helpless and empty. But just sitting there with them made them feel like, wow, you just spent time to sit with me and hear my story, hear my truth, and hear my sadness.” Photographer Christian Fuchs A detainee participates in Mass at the Service Processing Center for detained undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers in El Paso, Texas. 8 GREATER EDUCATION With greater need than ever, JRS believes that education is a life-saving intervention and is committed to helping refugees find an education, and ultimately, hope. 9 WHEN HOPE RETURNS “We had to move at least twenty times When Rama and her family returned to from one place to another. When we Homs, she enrolled in one of three JRS finally returned to our ‘original home’ it programs in the city. At first, she had a had been completely burned down and difficult time, refusing to interact with destroyed,” said Rama a 13-year-old girl other children and preferring to be on from Homs, Syria.