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“I learned to speak about and analyse issues that are often veiled in my society,” Sylvain from Malawi pointed out with regard to his engagement with the learning contents of the Interreligious Cooperation for Peace Course, offered this semester as a dual course by Globethics and Jesuit Worldwide Learning.

Semester closing ceremonies can sometimes be abstract and formal, if disconnected from students’ real-life experiences. With its end-of-semester webinar on 7 July 2023, the Academy team wanted to bring to life the values of co-creation in partnership and inclusion of learning communities, who would traditionally not benefit from quality higher education. Globethics and Jesuit Worldwide Learning have been journeying together since 2019, when they agreed to develop a course together that would address one of the most pressing contemporary challenges – how to build peace in religiously plural and often divided societies. The course has been offered by both organisations since 2021 and has contributed to developing the capacities of professionals working for international organisations in contexts of conflict and societal transition.

The presence of Jesuit Worldwide Learning staff, faculty and student members at the end-of-semester webinar illustrated the important mission of quality education dedicated to ethics without boundaries. Especially in uncertain times, marked by increasing complexities in terms of societal cohabitation, technological advancement, global mobility, and environmental challenges, as well as reduced predictability of the future(s), the reliability and trustworthiness of an education that aims at personal, professional and societal transformation are valued by those who benefit from it. This has been accentuated by the experience of students from migrant and refugee communities, who Jesuit Worldwide Learning is particularly reaching out to with its blended learning offers.

Globethics is committed to deepening such partnerships and to continue co-creating an inclusive, international and inspiring learning environment, in which bridges of understanding can be built amidst uncertainty. It is worthwhile renewing the reflection on this holistic pedagogical framework for quality ethics education that Globethics endeavours to provide through its executive, open and dual course programmes in the context of academic life events such as this.

Amélé Adamavi-Aho Ekué
Academic Dean

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