Participants at the workshop on web design

KONCHOWKI, India (UCAN) – A course on designing websites for their social service centers has taught Jesuits and their lay associates the importance of making their services known to others.

Presently, the work of Jesuits in the social service sector are not visible enough, because many work in places where there is little electricity, says Father Joe Victor, the Darjeeling Jesuit province’s social action coordinator.

The opportunity to design their own websites has made course participants realize the need to inform and involve others in Jesuits’ social work, he added.

Father Victor was one of 21 Jesuits and laypeople from 10 Jesuit provinces in India who attended a March 15-21 web-design course at Konchowki near Kolkata.

Father Victor says he now hopes to link the social service centers in his province through a common website for greater visibility.

His confrere, Father Ravi Sagar, 42, from the Jesuits’ Kohima region in northeast India, said the workshop provided simple tools on how to manage a website, and that this would be useful for obtaining feedback on the work of Jesuits.

He added that some viewers might be inspired by their work and may even ask to collaborate with them.

According to him, most Jesuits are busy with their work and do not know how to manage websites.

Father Xavier Jeyaraj, coordinator of the Jesuits in Social Action (JESA) in South Asia, the Jesuits in this region are involved in grassroots developmental works in some 120 social centers. However, only less than 10 of the centers are able to communicate what they do through websites.

The recent workshop, titled Making your Presence online, thus aimed to provide participants with the basic tools of web design.

The workshop also aimed to help participants reflect on their own perception of social reality, and help others learn from what they had achieved at the grassroots level, he said.