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25 Years of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS)

“JRS accompanies many of these brothers and sisters of ours, serving them as companions, advocating their cause in an uncaring world.”

General Congregation 34, Our Mission and Justice, no.16

The Arrupe vision in action

Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) was founded on 14 November 1980 by Fr Pedro Arrupe. While Pedro Arrupe gave inspiration and vision to JRS, it was his successor, elected in 1983, Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, who has implemented that vision and overseen the development of JRS until now.

While Arrupe’s vision remains inspiring, it is the close contact with refugees that time and again provides JRS workers with new strength and motivation. This was in fact Arrupe’s vision. He knew that the refugees themselves would be a gift to the Jesuits and their companions.

To the distant observer, the history of refugees is a succession of desperate crises likely to inspire compassion but often defying understanding. New crises may seem beyond our reach or leave us feeling there is little we can do.

In actual fact each new crisis provokes new initiatives. New organizations are born out of concern and devise practical ways to offer assistance. JRS was created in precisely this fashion. Fr Pedro Arrupe was deeply moved by the image of Vietnamese people seeking to escape their homeland by boat. When he voiced his concern to others, he discovered that they were similarly moved by these dramatic scenes. And when concerned individuals responded with diverse, creative and substantial offers of help, he realized that the Society of Jesus was well placed to coordinate coherent international action. Arrupe saw congruence between the Vietnamese refugees’ plight and specific characteristics of the community he headed. Moreover, he quickly perceived that the Society could help not only the Vietnamese, but also the refugees then in flight from Somalia and Ethiopia, and also those escaping Cambodia and Laos.

Although the threefold mission of JRS, namely ‘to serve, accompany and defend the rights of forcibly displaced people’, acquired this succinct formulation only in the late 1990s, the JRS vision was clear from Arrupe’s 1980 letter and in the earliest initiatives of JRS. In the otherwise quite diverse early projects one sees the term ‘refugee’ interpreted broadly, to mean people forcibly uprooted from their homes and families and livelihoods. Later, more precise terminology would be developed in international law to distinguish internally displaced persons, stateless persons, refugees in urban areas and asylum seekers. This legal terminology remains important in assigning responsibilities among governments and international organizations. For JRS, however, the human experience of forcibly displaced persons of any category is a summons, and Catholic social teaching has always endorsed this broad understanding of ‘refugee’.

The history of JRS is about the lives and hopes of people we know personally. This personal knowledge constantly transforms our understanding. JRS opens a door — beyond transitory and shocking images — into the inspiring lives of people struggling to defend their rights, protect their families and give their children a future.

An overview of JRS in the world

The activities of JRS in the Asia region were dominated at first by the sequelae of the Indochina wars. Most initiatives were set against the background of Cold War ideology and rhetoric. JRS quickly established programs in every camp that housed Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees throughout the Southeast Asian region.

In Sri Lanka, many people were forced from their homes in 1983, when the ethnic Singalese reacted violently to armed campaigns by the 'Jaffna' Tamils. But through the 1980s JRS mainly worked with the ‘Tamil repatriates’ who came to India under an agreement between the two governments.

In places where world politics was less dominant, local frontier politics loomed large, as with programs to assist the Burmese refugees in Thailand and in Bangladesh. India’s desire to maintain strong influence in Nepal and Bhutan, which are buffer states with China, continues to dominate outcomes for Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.

Although JRS directors were given authority to open programs wherever they identified a need and could find a way to begin, the best initiatives resulted from partnerships with the local Jesuit Province. An invitation of this kind could open the possibility of matching outside expertise and resources with local knowledge, leading to more effective projects. Without a local community base, or without knowledge of local customs, people and languages, or without an invitation from a Jesuit Province ready to make a commitment, it was often difficult to form an effective team.

Half of the world’s refugees are in Africa, so it is the continent where JRS has more presence and more work (56% of JRS’ budget is spent in Africa).

Almost every African country has been touched by conflict at one point or another in the post-colonial period. The unresolved legacies of colonialism, bad governance, weak state structures and lack of leadership, the criminalization and militarization of economies and the contest for control of scarce resources, migratory pressures, are all factors that now make conflict and forced migration more likely.

In 1982, Jesuits began the work of JRS in Ethiopia for those displaced by the Ethiopia-Somalia war and later by the Wallega famine of 1984-85. Seeing clearly the endemic nature of conflict in the region, and the prospect of enduring displacement of large populations, JRS accepted that its work there would not be accomplished quickly.

Meanwhile in the early 80’s in Rome, thousands of foreigners, especially Eritreans and Ethiopians displaced by war and famine at home, were left homeless in the city without shelter against the winter cold. So it was not surprising that Michael Campbell-Johnston and Dieter Scholz, the two Jesuits who had worked with Fr Arrupe to lay the foundations of JRS world-wide, began to assist these homeless foreigners. Centro Astalli in Rome is one of the oldest JRS projects.

In the mid-1990s, JRS arranged the purchase of property in Nairobi in the name of the Eastern Africa Jesuits, in order to provide a management base. It undertook deeper formation of JRS members serving there and saw the need for more in-depth studies.

JRS works in many different scenarios throughout Africa: from large refugee camps in Tanzania to urban settings in Johannesburg, with the internally displaced people in Burundi or with former child soldiers in Liberia, to name but a few.

In the Americas JRS has been caught between the demands of its mandate to serve the refugees and forcibly displaced, and the pastoral needs of migrants in general.

As the Cold War ebbed, many of the liberation struggles in Latin America subsided, often without resolution of the fundamental problems that had given rise to them. JRS’ early experience in Latin America was among El Salvadorans dispersed throughout Central America. It also had an important program among Guatemalan refugees in Mexico, including a role in negotiations that enabled local settlement of some and the return of others. Today JRS is works with forcibly displaced people from Colombia and Haiti. The JRS programmes in Colombia show no sign of diminishing since the needs of people displaced within that country continue to grow. In neighbouring countries such as Venezuela, there are Colombian refugees, who call on the direct services of JRS on the ground and JRS intervention in policy formulation. Small JRS programmes have sprung up in other Latin American countries. In Dominican Republic, a sizeable program has been developed since the late 1990s due to the critical need of the Haitians who cross their joint border daily, driven by the harsh economic and political situation in their homeland.

The work of JRS in North America focuses on projects mainly related to detention of migrants, advocacy and the promotion of research and publication. It also supports JRS projects throughout the world through advocacy, fundraising efforts and the provision of personnel.

In Europe, soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989, conflict enveloped the region of the former Yugoslavia, which quickly fragmented in the early 1990s into six smaller states. Impulsive acts of violence created rifts that will still take generations to heal.

For JRS, some challenges in the Balkans were totally new, some familiar. Based on deep friendships and trust, strong cooperative activities were developed with both Muslim and Serbian Orthodox communities.

sEastern European countries have for many years provided a back door route into Western Europe for asylum seekers whose journeys began in such places as Sri Lanka, Sudan or Somalia. Many were stranded subsequently in societies facing difficult circumstances. Over the years since 1989, JRS has extended its roles in these countries, building on early beginnings in places of great need such as Romania.

Western European authorities frequently fail to distinguish between a migrant and a refugee, despite continuing developments in international law designed to protect people in both categories. At the present time, punitive and seemingly xenophobic measures dominate the responses of western governments to the influx of asylum seekers. Alongside their many partners, JRS teams offer food and shelter to new arrivals, provide employment counselling, visit those in detention centres, provide information and public education, and help formulate just and appropriate policies.

JRS today

In November 1980 when Fr Pedro Arrupe called on Jesuits to establish JRS, there were only 16 million refugees in the world. JRS was to be a new apostolate for the Society and opened new paths of service and learning with the refugees.

Today, 25 years later, with 50 million forcibly displaced people worldwide and a total of 240 million uprooted (including international migrants worldwide and those displaced by natural disaster), the context in which JRS works has changed dramatically. Forced migration is taking place in a rapidly changing world where the old certainties are often out of date. Wars and conflicts are ending, while others are erupting. The geopolitically important issues and areas of the world are not those of yesterday.

JRS has tried to remain faithful to Fr Arrupe’s original vision while trying to adjust to these new scenarios of forced migration. Over the last years, many more are the internally displaced within countries than with those who manage to cross international borders. Working with internally displaced people is more difficult due to the volatile security situations and the social and political conditions. 

The traditional refugee camps continue to shelter millions of refugees, but many are also those who end up in urban areas. These groups are often more isolated, anonymous and difficult to trace than those living in camps, thus remaining under-assisted. Migrants who are trapped in detention centers are unfortunately a growing trend. The present debate on the asylum-migration requires creative initiatives.

JRS programme and advocacy strategies have been developed and continue to evolve to serve the most forgotten in places ignored by governments and the mass media. In 2004 JRS implemented over 200 projects, reaching out to some 450,231 people directly and 2,251,155 indirectly.
JRS scope of action now covers 53 countries, with contact persons in other 20 countries, employing more than 1,000 staff -lay, Jesuit and other religious, to meet different needs of over 450,000 people, with a particular specialization it has developed in education and pastoral care.

The help needed is not only material: in a special way the Society is being called to render a service that is human, pedagogical and spiritual, said Fr Arrupe in November 1980. A clear sign of hope is precisely this work in education: JRS reaches out to some 150,000 refugee students, offering formal and non-formal education. JRS also offers skills training to adults, in the hope that they are self reliant once they return home. A relatively new and important component has been the work on reconciliation and peace education.

JRS’ most valuable resource is its staff, many excellent lay people and other religious who work together with the Jesuits in every part of the world. The core team of JRS in 2006 was 1,243 men and women, including 153 international staff. Among these persons are:  78 are Jesuits brothers, scholastics and priests; 16 are priests and religious from other congregations; 55 are Sisters from many congregations; 518 lay women and 725 lay men. To this JRS core team we have to add around 4,000 refugees who collaborate with JRS projects, as teachers, school administrators or social workers. JRS workers arrive into emergency situations, with fewer resources than most, and they stay longer.

What we have learned

Throughout these 25 JRS has learned many things:

It is relatively easy to become involved in works, but less easy to remain flexible and prioritize where and when to stay and when to move on to new situations. JRS needs to go back and again to renew its identity as a flexible organization, ready to move where people are most in need. This requires a light administration, coupled with a more professional approach to give service of quality to refugees.

Many initiatives by JRS are inspired by what is learnt from refugees themselves. For instance, JRS was an early entrant in the world-wide campaign against the production and use of landmines, strongly supports the education of girl children in Africa, and after assisting victims in so many conflicts, helped start a campaign against the recruitment of children into both rebel and official armies. JRS constantly decries long-term and mandatory detention of asylum seekers, and while campaigning for these policies to be dismantled, works for the release — painstakingly and one by one — of individual detainees.

With the years, JRS has developed the work with non-Christian groups. JRS has Muslim or Buddhist workers. This has been most efficacious for our work, and it could only be very close to the heart of what Fr Arrupe would have wanted. We seek to form alliances and build capacities, both within JRS and in the organizations with whom we work.

JRS personnel have credibility to speak with authority about the world-wide problem of refugees because its field teams are so authentically engaged in listening to refugees in so many places. Communication is at the heart of JRS’ success. Its elements include hearing the refugees out, reflecting on experience, and developing effective communication within the organization and a credible voice beyond it.

The work on JRS requires a high degree of availability. Fr Arrupe, in his letter to all Jesuit Major Superiors of 14 November 1980 said: With our ideal of availability and universality (…) and the active collaboration of many lay people who work with us, we are particularly well fitted to meet this challenge. Throughout these 25 years, many people have been and are still a witness to this ideal of availability.

These 25 years of history are a work of love. Despite being kept in the shade of injustice and evil, refugees are a witness to the light of God. They reveal a task still to be accomplished. God is calling us through these helpless people. We should consider the chance of being able to assist them a privilege that will, in turn, bring great blessings to ourselves and our Society (Fr Arrupe, letter to all Jesuit Major Superiors, 14 November 1980).

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Lluís Magriñà, S.J.
JRS International Director
2005