MANILA, Dec. 16, 2009─A formation program for pastoral workers under the auspices of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has recently been adapted by neighboring Asian countries for training their migrant workers.
The Exodus program provides pastoral workers the opportunity to learn more about migration realities and let them appreciate the work they had been doing.
Organized by the Catholic Bishops Conference of Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, the seminar was held in Majodi Pastoral Center in Johor, Malaysia from December 3-6.
Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing, the current president of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and itinerant People of the Bishops Conference of Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore celebrated the Eucharist at the opening of the seminar.
Fr. Edwin Corros, ECMI executive secretary, together with Dr. Marla Asis and Dr. Fabio Baggio of the Scalabrini Migration Center facilitated the formation seminar.
The Exodus Formation Seminar was first initiated in 2001 by Scalabrini Migration Center, but it is now under the direction of the CBCP'episcopal commission.
Corros spoke on the topic of building awareness, pastoral care and advocacy for migrants and refugees. He also discussed the pastoral planning for the ministry of migrants and refugees drawing from his own experience as executive secretary of the CBCP's migrants' commission.
Baggio, director of the Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC), a leading research and study institution specializing on human mobility based in Asia, gave participants an understanding of the theological readings of migration.
Asis, editor of the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal of the SMC, presented the trends, flows and gender dimension of migration from the global to Asian perspective.
A select group of resource speakers from three countries of the bishops' conference had likewise shared an overview of the migrants and refugees' situation in their respective countries.
"A dream come true"
A member of the organizing committee, Cheryl Lee, hailed the formation seminar as "a dream come true", saying that it was what they had been wishing for many years to undergo.
Originally designed as a week-long course, the seminar was shortened to three days to adjust to the realities of the countries involved in the formation program.
Mostly attended by lay people, several of the 60 participants are already actively involved in the ministry while a few others are engaged in the pastoral care of the refugees. In a rare occasion to undergo formation, priests and religious took a break from their parish commitment and flew to the peninsular Malaysia to attend the seminar.
The delegates went back to their respective dioceses with renewed commitment and full of enthusiasm in their work among the migrants and refugees.
Some participants had expressed their intention to invite the three speakers from Manila to bring the Exodus program to Singapore and Sabah at the second half of 2010.
Concrete result
The Exodus program in Malaysia was a concrete result of the meetings among Asian bishops held in Manila and Thailand last year.
It was during those occasions that the bishops learned about the on-going formation given to migrants ministers by the Scalabrinians in partnership with the CBCP-ECMI.
The Exodus seminar in Malaysia was made possible through the support of Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing. The annual seminar directed by ECMI in the Philippines is normally funded by Missio-Munchen in Germany.
According to the ECMI, Malaysia is the third country that requested for the Exodus seminar after that of Korea and Japan which had the seminar twice. Both countries have since established a very active migrants' commission for their respective episcopal conference.
Malaysia is host to over three million migrants from within Asia and even from far away Africa. The country is facing a strong challenge of accompanying the foreigners in their midst, especially the refugees.
With a stable rising of GNP annually, Malaysia is getting more attractive to the foreigners. Working conditions however are not improving and migrants' rights are always violated. Workers from India and Nepal are mostly favored by the government to work legally in jobs abhorred by locals. The country has also been an attractive destination of trafficked persons.
Recently, the country was classified under a tier three level by the United States for having failed to curve the many number of reported cases of victims of human trafficking. (CBCPNews/Fr. Edwin Corros)