Theology & Religious Studies

Kochurani Abraham is a feminist theologian, gender researcher and trainer from Kerala, India. She has a Masters degree in Child Development from Kerala University, a Licentiate in Systematic Theology from Pontifical University of Comillas, Madrid and a PhD in Feminist Theology from University of Madras, India. Her research interests include gender, ecology, spirituality and transformative education. She contributes regularly to journals and collected works in India and abroad and is passionate about bridging academia and the grassroots for a liberative praxis. Besides being an active member and former coordinator of Indian Women Theologians Forum, she is also actively engaged in the World Forum of Theology and Liberation. She was the former coordinator of Ecclesia of Women in Asia, an association of Asian level feminist theologians and has been the board member representing Asia for International Network of Societies in Catholic Theology (INSeCT). At present she is the Regional Coordinator of the Indian Christian Women’s Movement for Kerala and the Vice-President of the Indian Theological Association. Her book, Persisting Patriarchy: Intersectionalities, Negotiations, Subversions was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019.

Anna is a Lecturer in Catholic Religious Education at the University of Glasgow. Anna has taught widely in the areas of Catholic social thought, Christian ethics, Christian apologetics, and political theology. Prior to her time at Glasgow, she lectured at the universities of Roehampton, Durham, Newcastle, and Tubingen, as well as working as a Research Associate in the area of Catholic social thought and practice at the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame. Anna's research focuses primarily on the dialogue between Catholic social thought, political theology, and Christian ethics. She is interested in how the Catholic tradition can learn from other traditions about the best ways to incorporate faith and praxis. In particular, she is concerned with how we can learn from grassroots faith-based movements and organizations. Of specific concern is what such socio-political movements can teach the Church about how to best engage with the poor and marginalized, as well as how more normative theological voices often further isolate these groups.

Francoise Bosteels SDS is a Sister of the Divine Saviour. Belgian by birth and nurse by profession, Francoise has lived out her religious life in India for the last 48 years. The simple way of village life as well as people’s closeness to nature fascinated her. She started representing people’s day-to-day life through the making of dolls. The experience of life in India, the situations she found people in, the day-to-day events and her own reflections gave more meaning and purposeful depth to her creation of dolls. They began to reflect Indian life not only with its breath-taking variety and unique beauty, but life with its gripping and enduring tragedies. Each doll has a story to tell. They embody and express something of her experiences, search, questions, dreams and hopes, of her tears, anger, prayer and celebrations. As she says: “They are a part of me, and I, a part of them”. Perhaps dolls like these could help people recall their history of resistance to oppression and their struggle for life and dignity. They could invite us to join hands across the world in dissent against further destruction of all living things and of Mother Earth herself. They could offer us new depths in our understanding of the mystery of

relationship to one another, to the earth and to the Divine. The experiential warmth of the dolls is a reason for their appeal to so many who encounter them during exhibitions in and outside India. See www.francoisebosteels.blogspot.com

Fr. Charlie is the Director of the Justice and Ecology Office of the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar (JCAM). He is also the coordinator of the Africa Task Force of the Vatican Covid-19 Commission. The JCAM Justice and Ecology Office works to foster and coordinate the Jesuits’ work in economic, social, migration, gender and climate justice in Africa. JEO is a vital Jesuit interface between global policies in the economic, social and environmental spheres and local issues confronting populations in Africa. JEO also works to foster collaboration among apostolic sectors in what concerns justice and ecology.

Mary Colwell (UK) is a multi-award winning writer, producer and conservationist. A well-known broadcaster, Mary produces programmes on the natural world and on environmental issues for BBC radio and television. She publishes on religion and on conservation issues across the print media and online and works with many church groups and civil society organisations to raise environmental awareness. She is spearheading a campaign to introduce a GCSE secondary school qualification in Natural History in England and Wales. She is also a passionate campaigner to save Britain’s endangered curlew population. Mary is the author of Beak, Tooth and Claw: Living With Predators in Britain (2001); Curlew Moon (2018); and John Muir: The Scotsman Who Saved America’s Wild Places (2014).

Dr Nontando Hadebe was born in Zimbabwe. She studied and now works in South Africa. She is the International Coordinator for Side by Side Gender Justice movement and a woman theologian who is a member of the circle of concerned African women theologians as well as Catholic Women Speak.

Mary Jo Iozzio, PhD, STL, Professor of Moral Theology at Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry, teaches Catholic social ethics, fundamental moral theology, and the critiques of systemic bias with special interest in disability studies, anti-racism, feminist theology, gender, intersectionality, and access to the commonweal. She lectures and writes extensively on disability at the intersections of theological ethics, anthropology, and justice. In addition to many publications, she has edited or co-edited the Journal of Religion, Disability & Health, the Journal of Moral Theology, and the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics; she is completing an eBook for Georgetown University Press, Disability Ethics/Preferential Justice: A Catholic Perspective and a manuscript for Baylor University Press on a theological ethics of disability.

Jan is visiting professor at St Augustine College, South Africa and retired associate professor of ethics at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Since his studies at the Catholic University of Leuven, he has served on the boards of many academic journals, scholarly societies and institutional ethics committees. Author of numerous articles on Catholic theological ethics, Jan has taught classes, delivered public lectures, and presented academic papers across the globe.

Hazel Lobo is an artist and activist who uses art-therapy, dance, drama, music and movement to raise awareness about justice issues including sexual abuse and violence and to enable people to move beyond these into ways of living that embody respect and care.

https://www.interplay.org/index.cfm/go/events:event/happening_id/1654/

Carmen is an expert on mission on the United Nations Internal Justice Council. She is a lawyer who specialises in international law and the right to development.

Benard is founder & CEO of Green Economy Foundation of Kenya. Benard understands the effects of climate change on Kenya and has instigated an extensive tree-planting project. He has been a youth environmental leader since 2015, and his foundation advocates for proper environmental management and conservation by planting trees for a range of milestones in everyday lives - trees for birthdays, trees for peace, graduation trees, wedding trees, trees for academic excellence... as he says, ‘in summary, trees for all occasions’.

Dawn M. Nothwehr, O.S.F., Ph.D., is The Erica and Harry John Family Professor of Catholic Theological Ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She teaches courses in environmental ethics, racial justice, and fundamental moral theology. Her publications include: Franciscan Writings: Hope Amid Ecological Sin and Climate Emergency. (Forthcoming Bloomsbury-London, 2022), Ecological Footprints: An Essential Franciscan Guide for Faith and Sustainable Living (2012), A Franciscan View of the Human Person: Some Central Elements (2005), Struggles for Environmental Justice and Health in Chicago: An African American Perspective (2004), and Franciscan Theology of the Environment: An Introductory Reader (ed. 2002).

Sr Veronica is a Teresian Sister and head teacher at St Columba’s Community Secondary School on the outskirts of Lusaka, a school built as the result of a partnership between the Scottish-based charity ZamScotEd and the Teresian Sisters. Sr Veronica also serves on the leadership team of the Teresian Sisters for Zambia and Malawi. She is a degree holder in Education and has been teaching for 16 Years. Sr Veronica has also acted as the main contractor during the building of the school and as such has seen the effects of drought, electricity outages, and the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable in an already poor community.

Prashant Olalekar sj is the founder of InterPlay India, a worldwide movement that fosters the integral wisdom of the body. He has organised several pilgrimages called ‘Building Bridges Peace by Peace’ in which US and Aussie InterPlayers played as equals with marginalised groups in the urban and rural areas of India. Prashant is the former director of the Department for InterReligious Dialogue at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, where he exposed the students to playful interfaith dialogue at the grassroots. Energised by the vision and mission to ‘Cocreate Cosmic Compassion’ they responded creatively in playful ways to the cry of the Earth and cry of the Poor.

As a member of the International Big History Association he fostered ‘Playful Education in a Playful Universe.’ He is also cofounder of Samanvaya, an interfaith platform for Harmony, that strives for communal and cosmic harmony. These ‘out of the box’ adventures offer abundant scope for collaborating as innovative voices for the voiceless.

Fr. Robert Michael Sowa, a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Bo, was born and raised in Sierra Leone, West Africa. As a child Fr. Sowa experienced the long-term structural violence which eventually led to the outbreak of a decade-long brutal civil war in his home country. He witnessed first-hand how human interests can harm the lives of poor people and harm the environment. It is from this context that his theological interests evolved. Following his ordination to the priesthood and a period working in his diocese as a pastor and schoolteacher, he left for Rome, where studied for his Licentiate in Sacred Theology. He is currently working with the Xavierian Missionaries in Glasgow and carrying out doctoral research at the University of Glasgow on Laudato Si’.

Trish Watts is a singer, songwriter and educator. For the past 40 years, Trish has worked as a performing artist, workshop and retreat facilitator in voice, creativity, soul and body wisdom. Trish is a trained InterPlay facilitator - an improvisation-based community arts practice - and co-founded InterPlay Australia more than 25 years ago. Her work is anchored in the bedrock of play and improvisation. As a registered Voice Movement Therapy (VMT) practitioner, Trish has run vocal programs in many countries, including for STARTTS - Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors in Sydney. Co-founder of Willow (Music) Publishing, Trish is a published songwriter and recording artist with more than 10 CD collections of original work.

A community choir director, her choirs include: Colla Voce, a vocal multi-cultural ensemble; the Sydney and Cambodian Threshold Choirs (singers who sing at bedsides in palliative care and recovery); and the Music Arts School Community Choir of Phnom Penh. Trish believes passionately that “Every life can SING!”

Dr Carlos Zepeda is Assistant Director of Policy and Practice at the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Campion Hall Oxford University. Carlos studied economics and international development in El Salvador, Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK. Inspired by his experience studying and working first with the Jesuits, and later, as political advocacy campaigner for international development NGOs and civil society organisations in El Salvador and Central America, Carlos explored how power shapes the root causes of social and environmental degradation. Carlos is especially interested in global water and natural resource governance in relation to social justice and the role of indigenous and marginalised communities to affect change.