The Journey of Jesus Youth Presence in College Campusus (BJEP023)
The Foundations of Jesus Youth Presence in College Campuses
(By Dr. Edward Edezhath, based on the article in Kairos Magazine in 2015)
"Are you simply going to hand the colleges over to revolutionary movements?"
I can still hear Sr. Hedwig's voice when I recall that meeting at St. Teresa's College, Ernakulam, in 1983. She had convened us — the youth leaders of that era — and she was not in the mood for polite conversation. She had a particular directness that I always found simultaneously uncomfortable and clarifying. You are confining your youth work to the parish, she told us, because it is easier there. The field of higher education may not be a comfortable setting for Christian work — but that is precisely where this youth movement needs to be active.
She was right, of course. She usually was.
In Jesus Youth, a challenge like the one Sr. Hedwig issued always becomes the beginning of a process. Discussion. Prayer. Discernment. From that process, an action plan takes shape. And from that 1983 meeting, several new steps emerged.
Youth Encounter Jesus
The most significant of those early steps was YEJ — Youth Encounter Jesus — which began in Palai that same year and swept rapidly across Kerala. What made YEJ distinctive was its scope and its quality. It gathered the entire student body of a college together — not a self-selected group of already-interested young people, but everyone — and over three days, led them through a proclamation of the Word accompanied by music that was genuinely beautiful. Even when participants showed little interest in the early sessions, by the final day something had almost always shifted. In the wake of these programs, new prayer groups came into being across the state. Nearly all of the youth leaders of that period put themselves into organizing and running YEJ. I look back on those days with a particular gratitude — they were hard work, but they were full of joy.
A New Beginning: June 1986
The formal launch of Jesus Youth Campus Ministry took place in the first half of 1986, following a review discussion held at Snehanilayam in Kakkanad. What emerged from that discussion was a recognition that renewal work in higher education needed to address three distinct spheres: administration, teachers, and students. Individuals took responsibility for preparing an action plan for each sector. A seminar for teachers followed, and then, in June, a weekend gathering for students.
The responsibility for drafting a framework for the students' gathering fell to me. I gathered a few people together and we worked through what was actually possible within the college setting — what the gathering should achieve, what it should feel like, who should be there. We drew up a list of students from across Kerala who had a genuine interest in this field. I wrote letters to Catholic college principals around the state. Through Jesus Youth zones, arrangements were made to bring both students and teachers to the venue.
That Friday-to-Sunday gathering in June at SH College, Thevara, Kochi, was, I think, more successful than any of us had dared to hope. The students who arrived first simply got to know each other — which was itself something they needed — and shared the particular restlessness each felt in their college setting. They spent time in personal renewal. Then they discussed what each of them was doing, what they dreamed of, and what seemed possible. Today we would name that weekend’s dynamics a Synodal Process. They left with a set of resolutions they had arrived at themselves, not resolutions handed down from above. It was the launch of what I would describe as a peer ministry at the college level — a ministry of friendship and accompaniment among students, for students.
In October that year, they were brought back together for a "Mid-Term Evaluation" at the Kaloor Renewal Centre. At that gathering, the first Campus Team of seven members took shape. Miss Sony Emmanuel, an engineering student, became the first Campus Coordinator — a young woman with exactly the combination of seriousness and warmth that the role required. By the following January's year-end review, the rhythm had steadied. June, October, January — campus leadership gatherings that ensured a steady momentum. Meanwhile, retreats, prayer groups, creative activities, and zone-level structures were coming alive across individual colleges.
Campus Meet '88 and '89
Campus Meet '88, held on the grounds of St. Teresa's College, Ernakulam, was the next great milestone. Around the theme "Arise and Shine," about fifteen hundred students gathered — colorful, joyful, seriously prepared. It was around this time that the Taizé and Focolare movements first came into close acquaintance with Jesus Youth, and the influence of that encounter was felt in the atmosphere. The theme song of that gathering in Malayalam, “Unaroo Yuvajanangale” — "Arise, O Youth" — I suspect is still ringing in the hearts of those who were there.
Unaroo Yuvajanangale >> The Song "Unaroo Yuvajanangale" (on Sound Cloud)
Campus Meet '89 moved to Vimala College, Thrissur, centered on "Thy Kingdom Come." The following year, five campus meets were held simultaneously at centers around the state, and a Campus Conference was organized in Ernakulam for the five hundred or so campus leaders who had planned all of them. That conference carried what I still think of as a genuinely revolutionary approach to formation: instead of general speeches, a clear training plan was prepared and transmitted in small groups where young people themselves trained other young people. It was the first time this peer-formation methodology was used at scale in Jesus Youth, and it worked better than we had any right to expect.
Formation and the Full-Timers
All this growth made one thing unmistakably clear: the campus ministry needed a leadership that was not only enthusiastic but well-formed. Formation programs like JET, Second Line, and DTP had already begun to address this. Master Builders — a two-week program for graduates — aimed at both faith maturity and social leadership. But the most significant step in this area was undoubtedly the Full-Timer formation, launched in 1991 with campus ministry specifically in mind, initially proposed by Santhosh Joseph. It later grew to encompass broader goals, but its origins were here — in the recognition that the Higher Education field demanded people willing to give it their full attention.
The Jesus Youth movement has always understood that the world of higher education is complex. It cannot be approached with a single methodology applied uniformly. The healthcare institutions required their own form of engagement; work among nurses grew gradually over these years. The 1990 Professional Conference gave shape to activities in engineering, medical, and law colleges. Teachers' gatherings formed another campus mission field in their own right. Efforts to bring research students together — to help them develop a conscious sense of their Christian identity and responsibility — were attempted repeatedly.
And the landscape kept changing. The separation of Pre-Degree (Higher Secondary) from Arts and Science colleges in Kerala prompted extended discussion within the movement. The proliferation of self-financing institutions was the next wave. Then, the rapid growth of professional colleges. Then the growing numbers of Kerala students leaving the state entirely for higher education elsewhere. Each shift brought fresh challenges, and the movement's leadership gathered together to discuss and reflect, and tried — sometimes successfully, sometimes haltingly — to respond.
In this era of the knowledge revolution, the university campus remains one of the most important — and most difficult — fields of youth ministry in the Church. That Jesus Youth has been willing, from those early days when Sr. Hedwig demanded an answer, to stay in that difficult field rather than retreat to easier ground: that, to me, is a matter of deep joy.
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For further reflection:
1. Sr. Hedwig's challenge was direct and uncomfortable: stop retreating to easier ground. Is there a field of service or mission where you are tempted to stay away because it is difficult? What would it take to step into it?
2. The first campus gathering in June 1986 succeeded partly because the students arrived at their own resolutions rather than being handed a list from above. What does this suggest about how formation and leadership development work best?
3. The campus ministry went through wave after wave of institutional change — Higher Secondary separation, self-financing colleges, students leaving the state. How does a faith community discern when to adapt its methods and when to hold its course?
4. "Peer ministry" — the idea that students are best reached by other students — was central to the campus approach from the beginning. Where in your own life have you been most formed not by official teachers but by companions on the journey?
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