Around 96 participants from 25 Caritas Member Organisations in Asia (MOs), nine Caritas Global Partners, 11 Caritas Asia network organisations, as well as guests and invitees were present at the Caritas Asia Regional Conference & Partners’ Forum held in Bangkok on 11-13 June 2024, bearing the theme “Responding to the cry of the earth and cry of the poor for resilient and inclusive communities.”

Caritas Asia was honoured to receive positive messages and support from Caritas Internationalis President, Archbishop Isao Kikuchi, and Caritas Internatonalis Secretary General, Alistair Dutton, in their inaugural speeches. The conference was also graced by the presence of His Excellency, Most Rev. Peter. B. Wells, Apostolic Nuncio to Thailand and Cambodia; and Apostolic Delegate to Laos. It was a great event of opportunities for knowing and learning from each other through presentations, group work and discussions throughout the week.

The first day of the conference was dedicated to elaborate the conference theme through a presentation from Fr. Edwin Gariguez which was followed by the panel sharing and discussion by Mr. Albino Nath (Caritas Bangladesh) on Climate Resilient Communities. Caritas Thailand presented its work on human mobility through different types of interventions by the National Secretariat (Jirawat Chenpasuk), emergency relief by COERR (Ben Mendoza), migrant workers in Thailand by NCCM (Fr. John Murray) and sea farers by Stella Maris (Apinya Tajit).

In responding to the presentations, the conference participants were grouped based on the sub regions to explore and identify the key learning, possible supports from Caritas Asia and how MOs in Asia are able to contribute.

The second day of the conference was mainly on sharing the progress of Caritas Asia within 2023 up to May 2024 time frame. Caritas Global Partners present in the conference (CRS, Caritas Australia, Trocaire, Caritas Austria, Caritas Spain, Caritas Italiana, SCCF, CAFOD, and Porticus) were invited to share briefly on their respective organisations ongoing engagements, plan and priorities in Asia.

All 25 Caritas MOs in Asia met for on the final day to discuss the organisational business matters, which include reports from the four sub regions, Caritas Asia program and financial matters, and the members of different committees and commissions.

In addition, Consortium of Caritas Asia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India and Thailand (C-AMBIT) shared about its pilot program and invitation for collaboration in the special session in the first day, while RAOEN (River Above Asia and Oceania Ecclesial Network) shared its work in the second day.

Also present in the conference were Caritas Asia network coming from Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC), Good Shepherd Sisters, Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN), International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), Light of Catholics in Asia (LiCAS news), and ILO.

The joint CIMS training was held in Manila from 8-10 April 2024 in the Philippines. This training was participated by both the CIMS Coordinators and CIMS Assessors from 31 Organizations including Caritas Internationalis. In total there were 43 participants with 23 men and 20 women. There were participants from five regions namely: Asia, Mona, Africa, Oceania and North America. Caritas Internationalis staff facilitated the 3-day training.

The Purpose of this training was to encourage all the CIMS coordinators and Assessors to have very good clarity of what CIMS assessment processes entails and to encourage all participating Member Organizations to prepare and start moving ahead with the CIMS assessment starting from the self- assessment process moving to the improvement plan stage and further.

The training had input sessions, group discussions & presentations, role play and action plan. Each participating MO developed plans committing to start and or progress further in their CIMS assessment and compliance work.