A Global Partnership Initiative of the Jesuit Schools Network
Dear Global Companions:  

Hello to all! Welcome to Hemispheres first issue of the school year!

The JESEDU-RIO 2017 Action Statement document invites us to a worthy challenge with 13 action items. What are the global dimensions of your school? How can you deepen those dimensions in curriculum and programming? We are part of a Global Network of 844 schools in 72 countries with one Universal Mission. Our Jesuit Schools Network alone has 83 schools in 5 countries...with the same Universal Mission. Check out the articles below to see how your JSN colleagues are engaging globally. Reach out and connect with each other and let the ideas flow! Don't forget to share with Hemispheres and to tag your social media with #JSNGlobal !

It is with great joy and the hope of fostering JSN collaboration and connections that we offer this new issue of JSN Hemispheres!
"To act as a universal body with a universal mission" GC35, D.2 #20
Catharine Steffens
Director of Global Partnerships
Jesuit Schools Network
In our classrooms...
Impacts of Global Art
Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
Goal 14: Life Below Water
Visual art gives us an opportunity to reach the viewer’s heart and mind in a way that cannot always be expressed otherwise.  Each year, my 9-12 th  grade students participate in an art project centered on raising the awareness of the  United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals . The objective for freshman students is to learn about the goals, create a likeness of an endangered animal, tree or plant based on Goal 14 (Life Below Water) and 15 (Life on Land) using colored pencil and ink. The objective for upperclassmen is to consider empathetic expression and impactful imagery while mastering combining three or more materials together (ie: acrylic, collage, watercolor, ink, etc.) for any one of the 17 Goals they choose.  
 
This project guides students to research and consider the implications of the responsibility we have in caring for God’s creation, to show the challenges through art, to brainstorm solutions and to share their expression with the world. I believe art is an extension of the soul, and a personal way to connect with God and the world around us.
Sascha Gordon-Manning ~ Jesuit High School in Portland, Oregon USA  
Educate Magis' Connected Classrooms
This summer, to celebrate St. Ignatius Day in a creative and fun way, St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, Loyola Blakefield and Cristo Rey Jesuit participated in a Connected Classroom with Jesuit schools from Nigeria, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil through Educate Magis . On this live video connection students shared questions they would ask St. Ignatius if he were alive today, while other students responded as they felt Ignatius would have responded. The questions ranged from ‘What is the importance of the Spiritual Exercises in our daily life?’ to ‘If you could have coffee with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?’ Read more about this experience...
JRS/USA Launches New Refugee Action Team Toolkit 
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA recently launched a new Refugee Action Team Toolkit just in time for you to incorporate it in this school year .
A JRS Refugee Action Team is a group of individuals dedicated to organizing their own community to support displaced people around the world through raising awareness, advocacy, fundraising, and other programming centered on refugees. JRS Refugee Action Teams are diverse in their membership and scope. A Refugee Action Team can be created at your school with any group interested in promoting a greater understanding of, and support for, refugees and the forcibly displaced.  
This toolkit (linked below) will provide you with guidelines, suggestions, and resources to help you launch your Action Team and ensure it is successful! YOU can make a difference by organizing your school to help refugees.  

On behalf of those we serve, we sincerely thank you for advocating for the rights of the vulnerable. We look forward to forming a partnership that will help build welcoming and supportive communities in the U.S. while changing the lives of many around the world.  
And beyond...
#JSNGlobal
Tag your photos with #JSNGlobal and SHARE your global journeys in & out of the classroom.
BC High Kairos joining Continents
The Kairos retreat experience between Loyola HS (Dar es Salaam), Fordham Prep and Boston College High is an incredible thing to witness.  The students, being from different schools, cultures, and continents, have to enter into the retreat with wonderful vulnerability and openness as they are all arriving with so many different layers of religious understanding, life experience, and cultural awareness.  This promotes an amazing dialogue and interest level that allows the students to grasp on a deeper level who they are, who God is, and how they are being called to lives of faith and hope.  The result is that the retreat experience levels the playing field and encourages all to see each other as fellow Jesuit high school students thus breaks down cultural, ethnic, and geographical barriers.
John Mark , Director of Campus Ministry
People travel to wonder 
at the height of the mountains, 
at the huge waves of the seas,
at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars,
and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.

―  Saint Augustine of Hippo
A sense of wonder and curiosity permeate Ignatian Spirituality. As you wonder, collaborate and connect with our vast global network consider sharing with others via Hemispheres. Contact   csteffens@jesuits.org .
The Jesuit Schools Network promotes the educational ministry of the Society of Jesus in service to the Catholic Church by strengthening Jesuit schools for the mission of Jesus Christ.