What?

This program will serve as an opportunity for students to build community with each other, deepen their understanding of the legislative process, and put into action what they have been learning through their justice work at their local school sites. It will be an opportunity for Jesuit works to come together in support of students, and to lift up our voices for justice.

The event can serve as a stand alone experience, or a follow-up for schools who are holding justice summits in the winter and early spring.  We hope the day can be a natural follow up action as we move students through the pastoral cycle of perceive, analyze, act.

Because secondary students will be leading the event, they will gather for 4 online preparatory sessions to build community and prepare for their meetings with legislators.  Their advocacy will focus on the legislative priorities selected by our students in the fall: Housing/Homelessness, Climate Change and Migration.

Who?

This program will be led by secondary and university students in schools in the Jesuits West Province. We also invite parishioners from Jesuit parishes and people who work in other affiliated ministries to join in support of students. We hope to surround students in the support of our Ignatian network, and use our voices as Ignatian adults to lend support to the issues students are championing!

The event is appropriate for Ignite fellows and students who attended the Teach In, but will also but open and accessible to all students regardless of previous experience with CORE or ISN.  It will hopefully be a great first step into advocacy work.

Objectives:

• Build connectivity and power in the Jesuit network by bringing together our local California apostolates to know each other more deeply, act together prophetically, and see ourselves as one ministry.

• Provide an experience of empowerment for students as they grow in their capacities as leaders of conscience, competence, and compassion. 

• Put into practice some of the learning and skills development that has happened through local summits, Teach Ins, CORE work, and Ignite work providing an opportunity for students to try on advocacy at the state level (Capitol).

• Receiving training in faith-based advocacy

• Practice faith-based advocacy in the form of legislative advocacy meetings with staff and elected officials from capitol hill.

Context:

The third universal apostolic preference calls us to have schools that are “spaces open to youthful creativity in which the encounter with the God of life, revealed by Jesus and the deepening of the Christian faith are fostered.” In this youth-led and -centered advocacy day, we will walk with students as they reflect on the issues of importance to them and their communities, engage in research and reflection about those issues in light of our shared Catholic tradition, and amplify the voices of those who are vulnerable, while practicing and demystifying advocacy. 

In so doing, we aspire to let “our work in education at all levels make people aware of the burning need for reconciliation, of the many who are estranged, vulnerable, alienated. We want those who are part of our educational mission to dream of and to build, step by step, a new culture based on Gospel values.”  

*Draft Event Schedule - Subject to Change in 2026:

Day One:

• 3pm-4pm Students settle into Jesuit Sacramento

• 4:00pm Ice Breakers and Orientation

• 5:00pm Opening Liturgy

• 6:00pm Dinner

• 7:00pm-7:45pm Student Led Knowledge Shares

• 8pm-8:45pm Meeting Practice

• 9pm Movie Night and Ping Pong

• Students will spend the night at Jesuit High.

Day Two:

• 8am Breakfast

• Leave Jesuit High 8:45am

• 10am Public witness at Capitol 

• Meetings with legislators

• Provide box ed lunch and debrief at Catholic Conference