The Facilitators Guide offers three of many possible approaches to using these resources and may be of interest to individuals as well as groups.

The role of the Facilitator will necessarily include organising the group’s access at the session to the resources on screen or in print.

A suggested structure for each Session is:

1. Preparation of the Focus Space
2. Prayer
3. Introduction
4. Content Explored
5. Reflection and Discussion
6. Closing

As this is the third theme in this Segment, groups will have already met for one or more sessions and so will have been introduced to the Focus (Global) and be familiar with the microsite.

Whichever presentation you, the Facilitator, or group first choose to engage with, commence your work with the theme using the Introduction by Elizabeth Davis rsm which highlights the wealth of the material in last month's theme, introduces the expression 'social change' and names some of the marks of this age.

In her Introduction, Elizabeth Davis rsm invites us to consider what has changed for each of us personally, singling out nine areas of our lives that we might examine:

Look at your own life and the changes in recent years in your food, your clothing, your home, your prayer, your reading, your friends, your interests, your use of social media, your ministry. . . As we name some of the marks of this age – some positive and some not, I invite you to observe the realities around you.

Use this exercise in your first Session on this theme to enable participants to explore the meaning and their experience of deep social change. They might also consider if there are other areas of their lives in which there have been significant changes . The article '20 big ways the world has changed since 1999' in the Good Reading section could be a useful prompt for this exercise.

Julia Upton introduces her Theological Imaginings  by sharing her long-held fascination of 'the extent to which Catherine McAuley's foundations circle the globe'. A useful visual of this is the map of the Mercy family on our Mercyworld. org website here.

The Distinct Voice Presentation introduces us to education in South Sudan. There are three Sisters of Mercy ministering in and for South Sudan, the world's youngest country.  Ailish O'Brien rsm, this month's Distinct Voice, tells of her call to go 'on mission' to South Sudan in her article written for World Mission Day 2019 and published on the Mercyworld.org website.

Homelessness is one of the six issues that emerged from the Mercy International Reflection Process (MIRP) under the theme 'Displacement of Persons'. Suzanne Browne rsm, this month's Grassroots Minister tells of her lived experience in London ministering with the homeless, while Angela Reed rsm presents the global perspective in her Mercy Global Action presentation. Last month, to mark World Homelessness Day on October 10^th, Elizabeth Dowling rsm wrote a paper 'Homelessness and our Wisdom Traditions' seeking to bring homelessness into dialogue with some of our biblical and mercy wisdom traditions. That paper can be read here on our Mercyworld.org website. 'The theme of Homelessness has been a very important part of our spiritualities’, says John Haught addressing Ecology and Christian Theology in his interview in the MIRP resource series ‘Voices’.

Once again we offer three of many possible approaches to using resources from the theme People and Deep Social Change implementing the suggested structure (nos. 1-6). The approach used will depend on the needs, interests and abilities of the group members. Facilitators may, of course, use their own approach with the resources, or choose elements from these three suggested approaches to create a different approach. At the conclusion of the Session the Facilitator or another group member is encouraged to send on ‘what is too good for the group to keep to themselves’ to mgpfeedback@mercyinternational.ie

Spanish translation using DeepL Translator. Traducción al español con DeepL Translator