Training for student volunteers

A group of about 100 young people who will shortly be doing summer voluntary work abroad attended a two-day seminar held by the Ignatian Youth Network (Inygo) last Sunday and Monday at the Paradise Bay Hotel.

The volunteers, mostly University students and Sixth Formers, will be working for a few weeks in July and August with poor children in Egypt, Northern Ireland or Italy, or with sick or old people at a home in Ethiopia.

During the seminar, psychologist Clarissa Sammut Scerri trained participants how to be prepared for volunteering, while Jesuit Refugee Service director Fr Joseph Cassar, SJ, spoke on the Church's social teaching, social justice issues and the preferential option for the poor. Besides these short-term projects, Inygo recently launched a long-term volunteering programme in which participants can work for six or 12 months in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, India or Chile. Applications close on July 31. Inygo is aiming to train and send the first long-term volunteers towards the end of the year.

Inygo co-ordinates the Jesuits' ministry with young people at St Aloysius' College, Birkirkara, the University Chaplaincy, Paulo Freire Institute, Zejtun, and the Christian Life Communities in Malta.

For more information, visit www.inygo.jesuit.org.mt or contact network co-ordinator Fr Jimmy Bartolo, SJ, on 9928 1101.