Wherever they are assigned, Jesuit priests cannot do the work alone.  In most places where they serve, the people have very little money to put in the collection box.  We appeal to our friends to join the Philippine province of the Society of Jesus in their mission with prayers and through generous contributions to their apostolic works.

The Philippine Jesuit Prison Service Foundation, Inc. (PJPS)

The PJPS is a community of Jesuit and lay volunteers who share in the mission of Christ through prison ministry.  The PJPS does this by;

a) Providing sustainable programs that assist in the total rehabilitation of inmates and their families.
b) Building a community of spiritually mature volunteers, collaborators, and benefactors who are committed to share their person, time and resources to the prison ministry.
c) Promoting prison awareness and advocating active involvement of the free society towards restorative justice and other prison reforms.
d) Gathering, developing and judiously administering resources to ensure institutional stability and viability.

We asked Fr. Eli Lumbo, SJ, PJPS Executive Director, some questions:

1.  How many children has PJPS sponsored in Grade School and High School to date?

To date we have graduated 96 grade school scholars and 100 high school.  The scholarship program started in 1994.  In the past 5 or so years we have between 30-38 scholars each in grade school and high school.  Each year we have around 100 scholars total, including vocational/college.

2.  How much is the average cost of sponsorship per child?

Grade school       – P15,000
High school         – P25,000
College/vocational     – P35,000
Please note that the amount includes tuition and fees, allowances (transpo, school supplies, uniform, etc) field trip, retreat/recollection, formation sessions, general assemblies, etc.

3.  How many children does PJPS plan to sponsor?

100 children per year.  We put a cap for this as we want to be able to monitor them well.  Monitoring includes school visits, home visits, one on one conversations, formation sessions.  We just have five full time staff in the office.  We do not have the personnel to do the home visits and monitoring of over a hundred scholars.

4.  Who have given to PJPS? 

Private individuals ,  Ateneo Grade school,  Enfants du Mekong Foundation, Quiapo Church , Corporations  and the Metro Bank Foundation