The World Union of Jesuit Alumni (WUJA) holds its new Council meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 17 and 18 July. This yearly planned meeting is the place by excellence where the global direction for WUJA’s action is being decided.

The Council of WUJA is elected during the general assembly held at the occasion of world congresses. The current Council was elected in Medellin in August 2013. Its composition can be found here (link). In its annual meeting, prepared by the Executive Committee or Bureau, which ensures the day to day management of the Union, it defines its overall strategy, reviews the advancement of various projects and launches new ones. Beside the Bureau (4 members), it has 13 members representing various geographies and a certain number of permanent invitees.

The choice of Montevideo is justified by the desire of the Council to go to various geographical constituencies of WUJA. After the meeting took place in May 2014 in Cleveland, USA (where the next world congress will be held in 2017) and before going in September 2016 to Rome, Italy, and in January 2017 to Ranchi, India, the Council chose Montevideo, Uruguay, to make a halt in Latin America. The precise choice of Montevideo was dictated by the opportunity to have our meeting coïncide with the one of the International association of Jesuit Business schools (IAJBS) taking place just after ours on 19-21 July 2015.

Attending this congress is a great occasion to present no less than three topics to the audience: WUJA itself and its activities and projects, our next world congress in Cleveland in 2017 and our project of the Great Lakes Business School in Bujumbura, Burundi.

Prior to that, the Council will have met and discussed around the following topics:

• Revamping of the Web site (wuja.org), integration with social media (Facebook – Twitter) and our database of contacts
• New ways of gathering articles, replacing the outdated formule of the Jesuit Alumnus
• Situation of the accounts and membership fees for 2015
• Great Lakes business school in Bujumbura (progress to date)
• Preparation of the Cleveland congress in 2017 (progress to date)
• Expansion of WUJA in the US: the Jesuit Friends and Alumni Network (JFAN) (progress to date)
• Exchanges of students and young Alumni doing social works (progress to date)
• Modification of the statutes (text to be proposed for ratification at an extraordinary general assembly in Rome in September 2016)
• Pedro Arrupe World Association: financial results

All of that is monitored with an eye on WUJA’s position paper as agreed upon at the last Council meeting (May 2014), and followed up via a table of the actions planned and a table of key performance indicators.

We will keep you updated on the progress made and the decisions taken.

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