BANGKOK – Twenty-four Camillians and members of the grand Camillian Family participated in the recently opened Camillian Task Force (CTF) Leadership Conference 2 at the Camillian Pastoral Center of Bangkok. These participants hail from 13 countries where the Camillians are having their missions – Austria, Benin, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Peru, Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, and USA. Among the participants are 6 members of the grand Camillian family and 19 Camillian religious.

The conference started with a talk on Servant Leadership delivered by a Thai Jesuit priest Vichai Phokthavi, SJ. Fr. Vichai in his talk highlighted the three models of leadership in transition, from transformational leadership to servant leadership and now the so called spiritual leadership as conceptualized and developed by the enlightened business sector. He said: we are now moving to a new paradigm of the theory of leadership which is undeniably gospel-based. He challenged the CTF leaders to be authentic agents of transformation.

On the second day which is the formal opening of the training, Fr. Paul Cherdchai made an opening remark and expressing his willingness to host again the group by next year. Fr. Sam Cuarto gave the background and review of the vision-mission, goals and core values of the CTF which was formulated in September 2014. Then, this was followed by a series of reports from the project sites for possible learning purposes. The reporters were Fr. Dan Cancino (Philippines), Fr. John Mosoti (Kenya) and Mr. Marco Iazzolino (Italy). The main desire of the reporters is to institutionalize a Camillian model of psychosocial (pastoral) intervention, i.e., community-based psychosocial support facilitators (CBPSF). This model was developed and tested in Sierra Leone through the CTF Ebola psychosocial intervention program as facilitated by Ms. Consuelo Santamaria of the Centro de Humanizacion della Salud (Tres Cantos) and Fr. John Mosoti of the Camillian Pastoral Center of Kenya.

A special meeting of the committee assigned to review the new Statutes of the Camillian Task Force International was held after dinner. There was a very lively discussion and proposal/s for the modification of the said draft Statute. Questions were raised primarily on the relationship of CTF International based in Italy with the CTF nationals who are strictly bound only by their respective local laws. Most of these queries will be presented to the lawyer.

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