Report on

Student Empowerment for Transformation 2000(SET)

The SET 2000 was held in Singapore and Malaysia from June 18-29 with the theme “Christian spirituality and Social responsibility- SCM’s response”. The SET was attended by 15 movements, about 25 people from all over the Asia-Pacific countries. The SET is one of the important leadership formation programs. The SET 2000 had the following four main objectives;

1. To critically examine the Christian spirituality and its relevance to social responsibility of the SCM

2. To articulate and reinterpret the biblical and theological perspectives on social actions

3. To search for a new paradigm of Christian liberative spirituality form the student and youth perspective

4. To self-critique and assess the life of the national movements and our personal life so as to enable ourselves and movements to contribute to a new community of affirming justice, peace and the integration of creation.

On June 19, The SET began with opening worship led by Sister Theresa from Singapore. Through her reflection on John 1:1-5, she told that the Christian spirituality could be found in the “sharing spirit”.

A keynote address was given by Dr. Ahn Jae Woong, associate General Secretary of the CCA, who focused on WSCF history as dynamic model of Christian spirituality and social responsibility. He emphasized that these two concepts should be understood as holistic, that is, two sides in one coin(please refer to the “Praxis” May to August, 2000). As responses to the keynote address, participants pointed out the following vision-mission of the SCM;

1) Living and Acting out the Gospel

2) Helping to reform the unjust social structures

3) Being an instrument to renew the church.

The participants closed the first night by gender sensitivity workshop led by Necta Montes, regional women’s coordinator.

On June 20, the exposure started. After having brief introduction on Singapore society, they visited a social service center taking care of the street children whose family has broken away. In the afternoon, two students from Trinity Theological Seminary in Singapore talked about the situation of Singapore churches. They told most church people belong to middle and upper class or professionals, which made it difficult to work on grass-root people’s issues.

In the night, they headed for Malaysia by train. In Malaysia, with the guidance of La Salle brothers, they divided into the following three groups:

1) Indigenous people’s village

2) Plantation area

3) Temporary housing in Kuala Lumpur(KL)

They spent one night with the people sharing their problems and hopes.

Exposure group to Indigenous village was told that “land right” issue was a critical to the village people - even though they had lived in the land more than hundreds of years, the government has given land right to them. However, the participants could catch the sign of hope when they were told that some youth and women’s group organized “ New life, One heart Movement” to tackle the land right issue.

The group assigned to “plantation area” learned that even though workers were suffering from long working time with low wages they had not given up the hope of just society.

The group to “urban poor area(temporary housing)” reported that they were deeply impressed by the people’s community life. They learned from the urban poor that no one get out of the temporary house until the government housing guaranteed to all of them.

On June 23, after they came back to Singapore by night train, in spite of extreme fatigue from Malaysia, they started second exposure in Singapore. They visited a women’s NGO, “AWARE “, which has been working for domestic violence. They also visited some red light streets in Singapore.

After all exposures they reaffirmed that students should work harder for the grass-roots, the maginalized people.

On 24 June, the participants heard an input on ideologies and theologies of WSCF-AP during 1980s and 1990s shared by Yong Ting Jin, Director of the Asian Women’s Resource Center for Culture and Theology. She pointed out that the SCM’s spirituality during 1980s and 1990s developed and deepened with their involvement in social actions with people’s movements. She challenged the group to “asses the need of the times, to live out their faith and to articulate theology and ideology that adequately express and reflect the dynamic faith and deep spirituality of God’s struggling people in the Asia-Pacific region.”

On June 25, they had a session on theology, surveying some of the various theological perspectives in Asia-Pacific region : Minjung theology of Korea, Dalit theology of India, Homeland theology of Taiwan, theology of the struggle of Philippines, and feminist theology of Maori. Following this session, they has reached to a common understanding that “theology” describes who we are and where we come from along side our culture. They felt that the SCM needed to focus on theological formation in order to articulate its vision and mission as Christians.

On 26^th, the participants involved in the discussion on ideologies that have impacted the life of SCMs such as Marxism, feminism and post-modernism. However, they acknowledged that no specific ideology could apply to all movements as there had been there had been diversity among SCMs except the common understanding that SCMs have always tried to share the suffering of the people.

On 26 morning and 27 afternoon, there were two Bible studies led by Yap Kim Hao and Judo Poerwowidagdo, respectively. Dr. Yap Kim Hao emphasized the importance of inter-faith dialogue to deepen our Christian spirituality while Dr. Judo, using John 21:15-19, reminded the participants that the Christian spirituality could be found in following Jesus’ way of obedience to God’s call. He said that Peter found the new spirituality in humility in following Jesus.

On the last day, after going through the 12 day’s exposure and discussion on the theme “Christian spirituality and social responsibility”, the participants shared their vision and mission as SCMs and reaffirmed the following vision and mission:

“To train and nurture members to become academically advanced as students, theologically equipped as Christians, and ecumenically oriented as church related persons”

Finally, the participants recommended several area of potential action. First, SCM needs a stronger sense of identity, one that is well founded in theology and engagement with the wider church. Second, SCM should consider networking to be of high importance, and seek to build stronger relationships with the church and society. Third, SCM highlights the importance of a spirit of creativity and community when approaching the above recommendations.

On June 28, the participants made several comments for the next SET program. They told the regional staffs that theme was really relevant to the current SCMs, however, length of program was too short to deepen the discussion on theology and ideology – it should be at least 15-17 days.

The 12 days’ SET program was closed with the worship led by Rev. Steve, chair of the WSCF-AP. He told the participants “let’s unite, share each other’s burdens in the faith of Jesus Christ, there will be no barriers in front of us.”