From Memory to Mission: Why Alumni Leaders Should Be in Yogyakarta

Interview with Hugo Alonso Pacheco Canny.

For many Jesuit alumni, alumni life begins with memories: a school, inspiring teachers, lifelong friendships, retreats, and the values quietly planted during formative years.

But today, memory alone is no longer enough. Across the world, Jesuit alumni associations are facing a deeper question: what are we doing, together, with the formation we received?

That is the conviction of Hugo Alonso Pacheco Canny, Past President of the San José Jesuit Alumni Association in Arequipa, Peru, CEO and Founder of AlumniSJ, and Coordinator of Interaction of UASIALAC. For him, the XI WUJA Congress in Yogyakarta represents much more than another international gathering. It is an opportunity for Jesuit alumni to rediscover themselves as a global community united by a common mission.

According to Hugo, every alumnus naturally identifies first with his or her own school or university. Yet that local belonging is part of something much larger. Across continents, cultures and generations, Jesuit education has formed women and men who share a common vocation to leadership, service and justice.

The role of WUJA is precisely to bring this worldwide community together and help transform a shared heritage into a shared future.

A Congress That Begins Before It Starts

What makes Yogyakarta unique, Hugo believes, is that the Congress has already begun.

Through regional listening sessions, surveys, conversations with young alumni and the Jesuit Alumni Identity process, participants have been invited to reflect together before arriving in Indonesia.

Rather than simply attending presentations, alumni leaders are contributing to a global discernment about who Jesuit alumni are today and what they are called to become.

For Hugo, this changes everything. The Congress is not simply an event to attend; it is a process in which everyone has a responsibility to participate.

Identity Must Become Mission

Leadership within alumni associations cannot be limited to preserving structures or organizing reunions.

The real challenge, Hugo says, is to transform identity into mission, affection into collaboration, and memory into service.

The question is not how to invent a new Jesuit alumni identity, but how to recognize the identity that already exists and organize it so that it bears lasting fruit.

Responding to Today’s World

Hugo speaks from the experience of Latin America and the Caribbean, where alumni communities face challenges such as inequality, violence, corruption, migration and social fragmentation.

Yet these realities are not unique to one region. Around the world, Jesuit alumni are called to respond to societies increasingly marked by division, distrust and uncertainty.

This is why Father General Arturo Sosa’s invitation for alumni to become “partners in mission” carries such significance. Jesuit alumni are not only beneficiaries of the education they once received; they are co-responsible for ensuring that its values continue to transform society.

From Inspiration to Action

For Hugo, attending Yogyakarta is therefore an act of leadership.

Relationships, trust and collaboration cannot be built only through documents or online meetings. They grow through encounter, by listening to one another, sharing experiences and discovering that, beneath different languages and cultures, Jesuit alumni are united by the same Ignatian spirit.

The true success of the Congress will not be measured by the quality of its sessions alone, but by what participants bring home: stronger networks, new collaborations, youth leadership initiatives, closer partnerships with Jesuit institutions and concrete projects serving local communities.

Building the Next Chapter

As WUJA celebrates its 70th anniversary, Yogyakarta offers more than an opportunity to honour the past.

It is an invitation to shape the future.

Hugo believes alumni leaders have a unique responsibility to bring the spirit of the Congress back to their associations, translating shared reflection into concrete action and helping younger generations discover their place within the global Ignatian family.

His message is simple and compelling:

Come to Yogyakarta because this may be the place where Jesuit alumni from around the world stop recognizing one another only by the memory of what they received, and begin organizing themselves, together, to serve the mission, their peoples, and the world.

Because Yogyakarta is not simply a destination.

It is where memory becomes mission.