Hyderabad is the fourth most populous city in India with an area of 650 sq k.ms (250 sq miles). Hyderabad is also a major global centre for IT and bio-pharmaceutical industries.

Around 50 former leaders of YCS, YCW and CWM participated in the one day launch program which started with a mass by Fr. Thumma Arla, a former animator of YCS and the Director of the Diocesan Pastoral Centre. The Diocesan President of CWM and the Diocesan Youth Director, Fr. Fatima Reddy also attended.

Ms Elizabeth Martin, a former YCW welcomed the gathering and introduced the CCI National Leaders and the International Secretary General.

CCI was formally launched by lighting the lamp by Fr. Thumma Arla and other CCI leaders present.

James Sylvester, a former YCS leader and currently member of the CCI-India Volunteer Team steered the day’s program.

Fr. Thumma Arla assured his support in the efforts to promote Cardijn. He emphasized on the need to ‘See-Judge-Act’ in the light of the Gospel values. Fr. Thumma appealed to the CCI to help him re-activate the Pastoral Centre and put it to proper use and expressed that CCI is always welcome to make use of the Centre.

Xavier Anthony, CCI National President extended the greetings on behalf of the National Team.

Ms Glynis Joseph, National Secretary stressed on the need for clear financial perspectives and self-financing.

Clifford Bastian, Member of the CCI-India National Team, who is also a former YCW of Hyderabad recalled his days in the YCW here and wished the Hyderabad CCI all the best.

M. J. Ruben, CCI Secretary General congratulated the Hyderabad Chapter for the launch. In his brief intervention he covered on the origin and objective of CCI and gave a general view of the functioning of the movement at the international level.

All the former leaders were very excited to meet each other after 20 to 30 years and they were very jubilant that such an opportunity was created by CCI.

There was a feeling of emotion clubbed with gratitude to the Cardijn movements which formed them. In their personal testimony, all those who spoke acknowledged that ‘they are what they are today only because of the formation they received through the Cardijn movements’.

The forenoon session ended with lunch.

Thirty-five members enthusiastically attended the post lunch planning session in which the members continued their testimonies.

Two factors emerged very clearly from the testimonies, i.e. i) Cardijn is the binding factor among all of them; and ii) through the formation in Cardijn movements, they have a ‘special identity’ which is opposed to the ‘identity’ imposed by the consumer culture promoted by globalisation.

All of them felt that there is a need to continue to work to restore human dignity and that they should function as a group. All of them wanted to be part of the CCI.

At the concluding session, James Sylvester proposed formation of an ad-hoc team to work out modalities for regular meetings, activities, etc. and it was agreed.

After consultation in small groups, a seven member team was nominated as the Coordinating Team of CCI-Hyderabad with Ms Elizabeth Martin as the Coordinator; the members of the team are: James Sylvester, I. Prakasham, Martin Michael, Patrick Fernandez, Manasa Janaki and John.

An appeal was made to those who would like to be part of the team to contact the Coordinator and to take part in the next meeting.

The grand launch program followed hectic preparations and contact work done by James Sylvester, Martin Michael and Ms Elizabeth Martin.

The National leaders of CCI-India and the CCI Secretary-General appreciate and congratulate the efforts of the organising team in bringing Hyderabad into CCI fold.

Report: MJ Ruben, CCI Secretary-General

]]> http://www.cardijn.info/2012/02/22/cci-launched-in-hyderabad-india/feed/ 0 http://www.cardijn.info/2012/02/22/fr-thomas-joseph-recalls-meeting-with-cardijn/ http://www.cardijn.info/2012/02/22/fr-thomas-joseph-recalls-meeting-with-cardijn/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:45:53 +0000 info http://www.cardijn.info/?p=462 Indian priest, Father Thomas Joseph, 92, recalls his meeting with late Cardinal Joseph Cardijn, founder of the YCW.

The nonagenarian priest says he was totally unprepared when his archdiocese appointed him workers’ chaplain in 1950, www.ucanindia.in reports. His only brief was to help in Catholic workers’ faith formation and organize them for their socio economic welfare.

“It was mainly to keep them away from communists,” he said with hindsight.

Inexperienced as he was, he began visiting workers’ families and their leaders. “I found workers helplessness and marginalized from one generation to the other.”

Trade unions controlled only the organized workers and used them for political purposes. And there was none to take care of the unorganized.

“I too felt helpless. My long years of formation did not help,” the priest explained. So, he attended a course in industrial relation at the Oxford University.

FULL STORY

Church needs to renew workers movement: Priest (ucanindia.in)

The Mondragon cooperatives now employ over 80,000 workers in 17 countries.

“The cooperatives’ triumph is attributable overwhelmingly to key attributes that set them aside from comparable conventional enterprises,” Dr Mathews writes in Eureka Street.

“Not to be overlooked are the conceptual framework that underlies the cooperatives, as well as the enduring solidarity and subsidiarity values that enliven them. These are the legacy to the cooperatives of their founder, the Basque priest Don Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta.

“Internalised and in part secularised as the values and framework have so largely become, they stem directly from the unswerving adherence by Arizmendiarrieta to formation in the ‘see, judge, act’ or ‘inquiry’ study circle mould, as developed within the Young Christian Workers unionist movement.

“As recalled by one of the five lay co-founders of the cooperative group, ‘Father Arizmendi organised specialist courses on sociology to which he invited economics professors … His ecclesiastical training led him towards being a practical apostle. He not only tried to give guidelines on what should be the model for the ideal enterprise, but he put that social enterprise to which he aspired into practice.’

“The benefits of this model of industry underpinned by Catholic social values are manifold,” Dr Mathews concludes.

But, “why is the Church in the English speaking world so largely silent about the Mondragon cooperatives’ success in bringing to fruition the long struggle in the cause of its social teachings?” Dr Mathews asks.

SOURCE

Catholic social solutions to workplace fairness (Eureka Street)

explains the influence of the YCW and Cardijn on Father Jose-Maria Arizmendiarrietta, the founder of Mondragon workers cooperatives in Spain.

New Zealand trade unionist talks about his experience with imprisoned Thai ex-YCW fulltimer Somyot Pruksakasemsuk.

The aim of the conference will be to launch a three year project by CCI to study the spirit and teachings of Vatican II and their implementation, particularly in relating to Catholic social teaching and the lay apostolate.

This will be done from the perspective of the spirituality and methodology of the late Cardinal Joseph Cardijn, founder of the Young Christian Workers (YCW) movement as well as a Council Father at Vatican II.

In the lead up to the conference, CCI will also launch a preparatory enquiry to begin the process of evaluating how far the spirit and teachings of Vatican II with regard to social teachings and lay participation have been promoted, understood and implemented.

Preparation for the event will also focus in particular on the two conciliar documents: Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral Constitution On the Church In the Modern World, and
Apostolicam Actuositatem, Decree On the Apostolate of the Laity.

Joseph Cardijn took part in the Council first as a consultant to the Commission on Lay Apostolate from 1962-65 and later as a Council Father in the Fourth Session of the Council after he was made a bishop and cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

“Cardijn gave three speeches on the floor of the Council on the themes: Religious Freedom, Young People and the Developing World, and Workers in the World,” noted CCI President Stefan Gigacz. “He also prepared two more speeches on the Lay Apostolate and the Life and Ministry of the Priest that he was unable to deliver orally.”

“We hope also to work on these six themes that Cardijn emphasised over the next three years of our project,” Mr Gigacz added.

More details of the conference will be posted here and on our dedicated website: www.vatican2plus50.com

Christmas and New Year greetings to all as we gather with our families and closest friends!

Let us also spare a special thought and prayer for those who are separated from their loved one. I am thinking in particular of former Thailand YCW fulltimer and labor activist, Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, who is now in prison while on trial over lese majeste charges. We also remember his family who have now been separated from their husband and father for eight months.

At this time we also think of former IYCW chaplain, Fr RV Mathias, who passed away just a few weeks ago. In fact, at the request of some former YCWs in India, we have now launched a memorial website www.rvmathias.com to commemorate his life and work. We hope to make the development of this site a participative project and so we will be pleased to receive your testimonies and photos for posting on the site.

We also learned recently of the death of former Brazil and American YCW chaplain, Fr Agostino Pretto, who played an important role in the movement during the 1970s.

This year also saw the death of another former YCW chaplain and liberation theologian, Belgian-born Fr Jose Comblin, who spend most of his priestly working in Brazil.

Another CCI friend to pass on this year was Thai Bishop Bunluen Mansap, who died in January aged 81.

We remember and give thanks for their sacrifices on behalf of the poor and workers around the world.

2011 has also been an important year for the development of the Cardijn Community with the 3rd CCI General Assembly in July which also marked the 10th anniversary of our foundation in 2001.

CCI India also held its General Assembly in Chennai in August where it was decided to develop a campaign on internal migration.

Meanwhile, the Cardijn Community Australia focused on the history of the Cardijn movements in Australia at its November conference.

New initiatives have also begun in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and elsewhere.

2012 is also shaping up to be an important year for CCI with the launch of our three project to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Vatican II.

We thank you for being with us this year and invite you once again to join us in our mission to promote the spirituality and methodology of Joseph Cardijn.

Stefan Gigacz

President/Convenor CCI on behalf of the CCI International Team

Benja Homwan, currently a company employee, testified in court that she had been a member of the administrative staff for the magazine since the executive editor was Prasaeng Mongkhonsiri who was later replaced by Somyot. She was responsible for membership subscriptions and the distribution of the magazine to almost 1,000 members.

She also had to check emails, and save and print articles which were sent to Somyot for him to read, but she did not know whether Somyot ever edited those articles. She saw that a sender named ‘Jitr Pollachan’ sent articles, which were the grounds for this prosecution against Somyot, and heard her colleagues saying that it was a pen name of Jakraphob Penkair.

Jakraphob, a politician allied with Thaksin Shinawatra, was charged with lèse majesté for his speech on Thailand’s patronage system at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in August 2007, and he fled the country after the red shirt demonstrations were dispersed by the Abhisit Vejjajiva government in April 2009.

‘Jitr Pollachan’ is a mix of the names of two legendary Thai Marxist revolutionaries: Jitr Bhumisak and Assanee Pollachan.

The prosecution witness, in answer to defence questions, said that she did not know whether Jakraphob was really ‘Jitr Pollachan’, and she had never seen him visiting the office. She saw several articles by Jitr Pollachan published in the magazine, but did not know whether they had been published after Prasaeng was the executive editor.

She said that Somyot had contributed to the magazine using his real name.

The first hearing in Somyot’s case was held in Sa Kaew province in eastern Thailand on 21 Nov. He was brought to Phetchabun on 28 Nov. He will be transferred further north to Nakhon Sawan and then down to Songkhla in the south for the next prosecution witness hearings on 16 Jan and 13 Feb 2012, respectively.

Earlier, eight international human rights NGOs have launched an appeal to Thailand’s Yingluck Shinawatra government calling for charges against Somyot Pruksakasemsuk to be dropped and for the nation’s harsh lese majeste laws to be repealed.

The Asian Forum on Human Rights and Development, Clean Clothes Campaign, Front Line Defenders, International Federation for Human Rights, Lawyers’ Rights Watch – Canada, Protection International, Southeast Asia Press Alliance, and World Organisation against Torture launched the appeal last month.

Somyot is a former fulltime worker for the Thailand YCW.

SOURCE

Second hearing of Somyot’s case in Phetchabun (Pratachai)

Joint Appeal by eight international human rights NGOs on the case of Somyot Prueksakasemsuk (Prachatai)

“We warmly welcome the decision of the Industrial Court judges (PHI) Bandung District Court, after a panel of judges chaired by Mahmoud MH and Judge DR.Syahrul member Eko Wahyudi (adho) and Haris Manalu (adhoc) won the PT Micro Garment Workers and employers require or PT Micro Garment owners to fulfill the rights of workers,” said Ikin Rahmat on Facebook.

After a trial that lasted one hour and 45 minutes, the judges ruled that the laid off workers should be re-hired and their salaries paid from May 2011 to November 2011 as well as allowances.

“Hundreds of workers, mostly women shouting slogans, could not stop crying over the decision of the judges to win the workers who deliberately stay in the Court of Industrial Relations District Court in Jalan Soekarno Hatta Bandung Bandung,” reported Ikin Rahmat.

“Even though most of the workers are escorted by students and other labor activists immediately perform prostration of gratitude on page PHI Bandung office,” he said.

SOURCE

Buruh Micro Garment Ancam Bakar PHI Bandung (Inilah Jabar)

SOURCE

YCW Metro Manila Action Monograph 2010 (Joeygevangelista)

Also present at the function were Fr Ernest Porutota whom together with Fr. Kurukulasuriya have contributed to the growth of the YWC, and Fr Reid Shelton Fernando, YCW chaplain for the diocese of Colombo.

The YCW was founded in Sri Lanka in the late 1940s. The young members of this movement then created its “adult” counterpart, the Christian Workers Movement (CWM) in 1953. In the late ’60s, the Cwm has grown at an international level.

“The mission of Cardinal Cardijn – said Fr Porutota in his homily – it is very important. With his method, he wanted to raise the real quality of life, following in the footsteps of Jesus. ”

Vivian Silva is one of the senior members of the CWM: “Our faith has no value unless we put it into practice in everyday life. We should not forget that every time we practice the Word of Jesus, we make it alive and present in our society. ”

Fr Reid Shelton Fernando told AsiaNews that “the mission of Cardinal Cardijn helped me in my priesthood and my pastoral activities. I want the members of the CWM to be fully involved in workers issues and to support their struggles. It is important that they have full knowledge of the Social Doctrine of the Church. ”

The Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka considers the inter-group and not national. Currently it has between 300 and 400 members in four dioceses. Nationally, there are about 50 groups, 23 in the Archdiocese of Colombo.

SOURCE

Colombo commemorates Card. Cardijn, promoter of mission in the world of work (Asia News)