Jesuitenmission: with the world's poor

The Jesuitenmission is an institution of the German Jesuits.  With about 20,000 members, the Jesuits are the largest Catholic male religious order in the world.  The Jesuitenmission supports social and pastoral projects of Jesuits, religious sisters and committed laypeople around the world.  

We currently support some 600 aid projects in more than 50 countries.  The projects range widely, from disaster relief and refugee assistance to health and social work, from schools and vocational training to ecological and agricultural initiatives, from pastoral and human rights work to artistic and cultural promotion. 

 

We rely entirely on private donations to fund our support for these initiatives around the world.  In the past year, our benefactors have entrusted us with about 12 million Euros.  The guiding principle of our work is the belief in solidary help from human to human.  Thus, we maintain close ties to our partners in friends in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South, East and Central Asia.

We don’t finance large multimillion-dollar projects but focus instead on grassroots initiatives which help the poor directly and get them actively involved.  We also have the courage to trust the new ideas, approaches and methods of our missionaries and partners in the struggle against poverty, since it is they who are on the ground, giving heart and soul to the cause. 

 

We are your link to our project partners and Jesuits worldwide.  We transfer your donations to the project of your choice, and we keep you informed –- especially through our magazine, Weltweit -- about the status of our projects, new developments, and the problems and challenges in our priority countries.

 

When our project partners visit Europe and Germany, we are often their first stop.  We help them establish contacts with other aid organizations, because we know that the need is almost always greater than the means at our disposal, and we believe that collaboration with other actors is much more useful to the poor than competition for donations or “most successful projects.”

 

Nothing has a greater impact than the personal interaction with our friends around the world.  This is confirmed in our experience, day after day.  Please talk to us if you would like to learn more, perhaps by organizing an event in your community, school or firm.

 

We also offer volunteer opportunities in foreign countries for youth and adults who want to engage the reality of the poor and join them in the search for justice.  Our Youth Initiative at Werkstatt-Weltweit also organizes creative projects, seminars and exposure trips.

 

We invite you to come and join us in our endeavours for and with the world’s poor!