The ninth CADIS leadership conference has officially begun. The 40 participants from all over the world have arrived and will spend the week of training at the Camillian Pastoral Centre in Bangkok, Thailand, discussing this year's theme ‘Reaffirming our Commitment and Harnessing our Interventions in Building an eCon-Resilient Vulnerable Communities’.
Australia, Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda,Tanzania, Benin, Haiti, Brazil, Poland, Ireland, Spain and Italy are the participating countries attending the Conference.
On Sunday evening, the Conference opened with a Eucharistic celebration presided by Fr. Paul Cherdchai MI, the provincial superior of Thailand. He shared his reflection encouraging the participant to follow the path of the Beatitudes, the call to holiness and fullness in life. The official presentation of the activities during the entire week has re-energized the spirit, commitment and enthusiasm of CADIS towards a collaborative future.
The first topic discussed on Day 1 is on servant leadership, the path to building resilience in the most vulnerable communities. The topic was delivered by Aris Miranda, MI, CADIS International Director.
It was a journey exploring the many aspects of an authentic servant leader, different from a traditional leader. Servant leadership is a leadership style that emphasizes listening to and putting the needs of the other’s first, rather than the leader’s own interests.
The path started with the exploration of the three different models of servant leadership: the Biblical models (Moses, the Prophets, and Jesus Christ), from the Camillian Tradition (St. Camillus de Lellis, and the Camillian Martyrs of Charity), and a contemporary witnessing like St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
A Servant leader is made of tenderness plus toughness. He shares power and control, differently to a leader that uses power and control over people. He listens, while a traditional leader speaks. It defines success as giving, and measures achievement by devotion to serving.
In addition, the CADIS model of servant leadership is grounded in The New School of Charity of St. Camillus which focuses on leadership through service in being and seeing Christ in the sick person. It believes in service as the heart of leadership.
Camillus turns leader as he becomes a servant to the God-revealed mission. He took necessary risks to make needed changes, defended the sick, and confronted those who neglected the care of the sick. He served the mission and led by serving those on mission with him.
Finally, we ended up with intelligent leadership reflected by the example of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Intelligent Leadership is a comprehensive framework to help exceptional individuals breakthrough self-imposed limitations and unlock their full potential by focusing on three interconnected components: inner-core strengths, outer-core competencies, and a commitment to excellence.
The afternoon session continued by addressing one of the key themes of the conference ‘from emergency to building resilience’. A crucial point that, due to climate change raging havoc in the world and its severe consequences to humanity and God’s divine plan it prompted CADIS to recalibrate its disaster’s intervention.
If it is true that it is crucial to quickly assist the most vulnerable populations affected by natural disasters, it is equally true that it is critically important to support those same populations to strengthen their resilience and to be able to interface with natural disasters while trying to minimise the destructive consequences as much as possible.
Day 1 was capped with a workshop on identifying the top three priority areas to focus on strengthening community resilience and analysing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in resilience-building engagement.
Different challenges surfaced such as faith and cultural difficulties in the framework of the principle of non-descrimination, and the importance of re-orienting the mindset of donors and volunteers into building resilience perspectives. Aside from challenges, we also saw opportunities to support the most vulnerable communities and turn them into an eCon-resilient reality.
