Thirteen MDU Scholastics describe what they experienced during their summer camps with different groups and the impact they had on them.
We Went to Serve, We Came Back Transformed
We entered the Homeless Camp at Dream India Network (DIN), Trichy, thinking we were going to serve, but we soon realized that we were there to be formed. Living for ten days with 42 people rescued from streets, railway stations, and public places challenged our understanding of homelessness, dignity, and humanity.
One experience particularly disturbed us. Seeing some residents beaten harshly made us ask: Who is really insane—the person struggling with mental illness, or the one who can beat another human being, violating his dignity? The encounter challenged us to examine how easily we label others while failing to recognize the humanity before us. We began to look beyond labels and encounter the person behind them. Through shared meals, games, conversations, and simple acts of care, barriers slowly disappeared. We learnt that compassion begins with listening, solidarity with presence, and service with humility. It made us question how often we, too, become blind to another’s humanity simply because society has taught us to see a label before a person.
For us as Jesuit scholastics, the camp became an invitation to recognize Christ in those whom society often overlooks. We arrived believing we had something to give. We left, realizing they had much to teach us about resilience, hope, and human dignity.
Schs. Rajaselva & Jenson
When they are so eager to learn….
The Migrants’ Children Camp in Chennai brought us close to children from migrant and Irular communities whose lives are marked by poverty, limited education, and difficult surroundings. Yet what struck us most was their enthusiasm. Despite having so little, they were eager to learn, play, create, and discover. Simple activities like songs, drawing, games, and crafts filled them with joy.
The communication gap made the experience more challenging. Often we couldn’t speak their language, and yet through gestures, expressions, play, patience, and affection, we slowly built bridges. What challenged us even more was reflecting on ourselves: if these children, with so few opportunities and resources, could remain eager to learn, why do we, with all our education, resources, and privileges, sometimes fail to learn, grow, or give our best? Their circumstances could have limited them, but did not define them.
We learnt that education is not merely receiving knowledge but cultivating the desire to grow. As Jesuit scholastics, we were challenged to examine whether our sophistication truly makes us more available, grateful, disciplined, and committed to growth. The children reminded us that formation begins with a willing heart.
Schs. Dinesh, Arul Oli & Arnold
The Deepest Abandonment
During our Summer Camp for Fisherfolks in the coastal villages of Thoothukudi, we encountered abandonment as a lived reality. For fisherfolk, the sea is not romance; it is survival. We met families carrying the weight of poverty, uncertain livelihoods, debt, and children growing up with fathers constantly risking their lives at sea.
One evening, an elderly fisherman repairing his torn net told us, “The sea does not frighten me anymore. What frightens me is returning home and seeing my children hungry.” His words pierced through our romanticized image of the sea and revealed the harsh reality of a man whose greatest fear was not death at sea, but returning home unable to feed his children. We began to see how economic, social, and political structures can quietly abandon people whose labour sustains society. Yet we also witnessed their dignity, resilience, faith, and hope.
Before entering fragile boats, they prayed and entrusted themselves to God. This experience challenged us as Jesuit scholastics to ask: Who are the people we fail to see? We learnt that solidarity begins when we allow another’s struggle to disturb us. Their lives reminded us that justice demands more than charity; it demands presence, advocacy, and action. Perhaps the deepest abandonment is not being seen.
Schs. John Philips & Albert
What we found that night
We went to the Shelter Homes in Chennai, hoping to be of some service. But the people we encountered quietly became our teachers. We witnessed a community that welcomed those without a home with dignity, regardless of their circumstances or the time of arrival. One night, during street outreach, we found a family sleeping outside a shop—a father, mother, two children, and their dog. The simplicity of the scene stayed with us: how easily people can become invisible while the world continues around them.
Another encounter pierced us more deeply. A man asked whether we truly cared for them or had simply come to complete our documentation and leave. His question unsettled us. Even sincere service can reduce persons to cases, numbers, or beneficiaries when we forget the human being before us.
We left asking ourselves: Are we really different from them, except for the circumstances into which we were born? The experience taught us that compassion begins when we stop looking at people as recipients of our service and encounter them as persons. As Jesuit scholastics, we learned that even while serving others, we must allow their lives to question, humble, and transform us.
Schs. Sahayam & Herman
We see the salt, but not the suffering
Some of us went to the salt pans of Thoothukudi, and there we encountered a suffering hidden behind something as ordinary as salt. Under a relentless sun, workers spend hours standing in salt, earning meagre daily wages. They do not have protective equipment, clean water, sanitation, or adequate healthcare. Their bodies bear the cost – burned skin, failing eyesight, dehydration, anemia, wounds, and chronic pain. Women, earning even less, carry the additional weight of sustaining their families. When it rains, obviously there is no work, but the workers keep worrying about their debts.
Now, industrialization is swallowing their salt pans, threatening not only their livelihood but also their land, dignity, and way of life. It took some time for us to grasp the contradiction: the salt that reaches our tables carries the sweat of people whose lives remain invisible to us. We began to ask whether our comfort is built upon suffering we have simply learned not to notice.
As Jesuit scholastics, we were challenged to see what society overlooks, to listen to voices rarely heard, and to let another’s suffering become our concern. We learnt that justice begins not merely with compassion, but with the courage to see, be disturbed, and respond.
Schs. Prasanth & Kalaiselvan
Their struggle for acceptance
We are conditioned from childhood to see the world through binaries. What we experienced during those ten days when we journeyed with transgender communities in Chennai challenged that certainty. Behind every transgender person we met was a story marked by rejection, domestic violence, mental torture, and abandonment.
Their recurring question was, “Why can’t society simply let us be”? That made us see that our discomfort with difference is often greater than our concern for another’s dignity. We witnessed the struggles transgenders go through for acceptance, employment, housing, and even the freedom to exist without being constantly questioned. Meeting both trans women and trans men also revealed different experiences of community and belonging.
Despite the unimaginable struggles the trans persons face, their greatest source of strength is one another. Their struggles unite them. They are happiest when they are with their community. Surprisingly, the trans community has also managed to transcend caste barriers.
As Jesuit scholastics, this journey made us confront how deeply our own assumptions shape the way we see others. We learnt that dignity is not something society grants; it is intrinsic, inherent, and inalienable. This dignity demands respect. And the first step towards respect is just to listen.
Schs. Joshua & Ebi