13 years forming young university students from Latin America in Ignatian leadership
The Latin American Ignatian University Leadership Program (PLIUL) is designed to strengthen the processes of integral formation of young university students who are given the opportunity to develop capacities, abilities and skills in leadership with social commitment, from an Ignatian approach. The PLIUL was born with a first pilot experience (2007) in which six universities participate: Pontificia Javeriana in Bogotá and Cali, Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala, Universidad Iberoamericana in León, Universidad Católica del Táchira and Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas. Based on this experience, a team of coordinators and facilitators was formed to accompany the experience in each of these venues and meet systematically to exchange experiences and improve the processes. To date, there are more than 3,000 graduates and 20 universities are involved.
Each university has Local Implementation Teams in charge of refining the details and accompanying this space of integral formation. With a minimum of 24 sessions, the program seeks to guide participants in assuming their societies responsibly and having the necessary skills to participate in processes of advocacy on social problems, from the commitment to life, faith and justice, reconciliation, in the context of their locality and region, with a global view. Three special activities are proposed outside the University:
- the experience of the Spiritual Exercises,
- an insertion experience where the young people live in a community with a vulnerable population and have the opportunity to understand their reality and work in a team with the leaders in a community initiative;
- and a face-to-face meeting with other sister universities as a regional meeting, according to the possibilities of the universities.
Student Testimonial
"An Ignatian leader is a person who works with and for others with the aim of improving various situations in our environment to provide a full and dignified environment..."
- Guadalupe Avila ITESO, Mexico.
"...Men and women committed to the community, competent and creative, with a free and cooperative spirit to join efforts with others and with God whom they find in everything and everyone"
- Diana Bernal, Iteso - Mexico
"My experience at PLIUL 2019 was for me a "coming out of the everyday, towards an encounter with the other", to question myself and let myself be affected by the reality of those who are victims of unjust structures. From its three axes: socio-political formation, tools for leadership and Ignatian identity, I was able to discover a way of being Church, a Church that links faith with the promotion of justice, to build a world in peace, justice and fraternity”
- Andres Boretto UCC Argentina.
"...He called me to raise my eyes from my own shoes and look around, to notice the men, women and children who walk beside me suffering the weight of structures that deny and marginalize them, condemning them to oblivion. He invited me to look into their eyes, recognize their dignity, walk beside them and open myself to be together co-creators of our lives. Ignatian leadership taught me to humanize myself”
- Alejandro Hevia, UCAT Venezuela