Cătălin and Bianca Albu are general manager and senior manager for programs, respectively, at Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Bucharest, Romania. JRS-Romania is a nonprofit organization that assists the growing number of people arriving in Romania from Europe, the Middle East and Asia with a commitment to “seamless integration” and services such as legal guidance, accommodation for destitute persons, mental health care, and other services such as language acquisition, skill development, tangible support, and integration into larger communities. Now the largest church-based responder to the Ukrainian crisis in the country, JRS-Romania has quadrupled the number of people served since the war began, aiding 39,616 people in 2023.
Fr. Zachariah Presutti, S.J., M.Div. ’21 is a Jesuit priest who founded Thrive for Life (TFL) in 2017 by with the mission to transform lives both behind and beyond prison walls. Behind the walls, TFL offers thousands of incarcerated men and women in New York and Wisconsin retreats and spiritual guidance rooted in the classical reflective and meditative resources for an examined life handed down to the Church through the example and legacy of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. Beyond the prison walls, TFL provides assistance through a growing network of houses of study for returning citizens to live in community while receiving holistic supportive services, with a particular focus on education, employment, and permanent affordable housing.
Sr. Francisca Ngozi Uti, HHCJ, is founder and executive director, Centre for Women Studies and Intervention (CWSI) in Abuja, Nigeria. CWSI is an initiative of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, an order of Catholic Sisters founded in 1931 by Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker, RSC. CWSI works to empower women and other vulnerable persons in Nigeria to be liberated and active in the creation of a better world. Its mission is to uphold the dignity of women and other vulnerable people through capacity-building, advocacy, awareness-raising, research, and documentation of pressing issues. CWSI also advocates for the inclusion of women in government roles and for laws that combat gender-based violence in five Nigerian states.
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