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National push to unite chaplains

July 15, 2004

Judy Redmond.jpgThe University of New England has helped spark a movement to form a national association of university chaplains in Papua New Guinea.
UNE sponsored the attendance of the Rev. Advent Melkisede, a University of Goroka chaplain, at an international conference of university chaplains in Australia earlier this month. (UNE and the University of Goroka are partners in an agreement on cooperation and exchange.) The conference, at Griffith University in Brisbane, inspired Mr Melkisede to begin the process of forming a national association in PNG.

The Rev. Judy Redman, UNE’s Uniting Church chaplain, represented UNE at the conference. She said Mr Melkisede, who coordinates chaplaincy at the University of Goroka, “was very pleased to be there, and was excited at seeing the benefits of getting a group of chaplains together and sharing ideas”.
Ms Redman, who was on the organising committee for the conference in Brisbane, has been appointed one of two Australian chaplains who will liaise with the PNG chaplains during the initial stages of the project. She said Mr Melkisede was planning to convene the first national conference of PNG university chaplains around the end of this year.
The 3rd International Campus Ministry Conference ran throughout the first week of July at Griffith University. Titled Dreaming Landscapes: Spiritualities and Justice in Learning Communities, it involved delegates from 19 overseas countries as well as from around Australia. The total number of participants was about 240.
The multi-faith conference included a keynote address from Dr Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World, Malaysia. He spoke about the need for university chaplains to be aware of the roots of injustice on a global scale when counselling individual students suffering its repercussions.
Another keynote speaker, Dr David Tacey from La Trobe University, Melbourne, explored the implications for university chaplains of the increasingly secular nature of society in developed countries.
Ms Redman said British and Australian delegates had found they were encountering similar concerns about increasing levels of student debt associated with changing government strategies for funding higher education.

Posted by Lydia Roberts at July 15, 2004 10:11 AM