Asian Social Institute

[EduCativ]

Ever since his arrival in the Philippines, he was known to be the only Christian country in the Far East; he was struck by the widening gap between the rich and the poor. When the late Rufino Cardinal Santos, D.D., Archbishop of Manila, invited Fr. Senden to start an Asian Social Institute, he was hesitant, realizing that already there were prestigious educational institutions offering master's degrees in the social sciences. Yet, he could not deny that the Philippines was still longing for the Christian leaders who would commit themselves to address the great divide between the rich and the materially poor. He nevertheless decided to start a new social science graduate school.
The new graduate school had to be a graduate school with a difference. Therefore, ASI would be a school of high academic standing but with the poor people of the Philippines as a frame of reference moreover since he was convinced that change in society could only be possible if there would be found leaders on all strata of society actively concerned about justice and life chances. Indeed, the divide would never be bridged unless also the people of modest means, and the poor would take an active part in the process. For this reason, ASI should guarantee a staff of excellent professors while also seeing to it that talented students of modest means and from among the poor will be formed.
Ensuring its social and cultural rootedness, ASI provides a structured learning environment in three interacting departments – the Academe-Research, the Social Development, and the Administrative Services. ASI's thrust is to contribute to an experientially and culturally based theory of social transformation. It gives importance to the persons-in-community and their essential relationships. It creates a social climate that enables persons to achieve their full human potentials towards community wealth and well-being within a new ecological development paradigm and movement called "Co-Creating Sustainable Bio-Regional Communities (CSBCom)."
This is facilitated through meaningful integration of the three departments, each one sharing in the task of forming students according to the Institute's social and educational ideals from the perspective of Christian Social Teachings. The Social Development Department grounds the ASI community – administrators, faculty, students, and non-teaching staff in ASI's marginalized partners' realities of life. This allows for learning where life contexts serve as learning environments. The Academe-Research Department theorizes from lived experiences in communities to contribute to the established fund of knowledge, skills, and change processes contained in the existing literature. The Research dimension is integral to education, organization, action, and advocacy. All programs are supported and facilitated by the Administrative Services Department.
As ASI moves in the Third Millennium, it continually strives to be a graduate school of excellence with a difference as cited. ASI is there to serve, especially Asia and the Pacific. Currently, its graduate courses in Economics, Sociology, and Social Work and its Bachelor of Science in Social Work enjoy Level III accreditation status effective August 31, 2007, and valid until April 2012. (The Master of Science in Sociology has two branches of specialization: Pastoral Sociology and Pastoral Studies). On June 14, 1977, a government recognition (No. V-0052 s.1977) has been granted to ASI to offer a particular course for community development workers now known as International Diploma Course in Community Development (IDCCD).
The Social Development Department is the animating arm of the Asian Social Institute where transformative ideas and innovative approaches are tried out in actual practice, and community extension services are carried out in partnership with self-empowered people's organizations, parishes, local government units, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders. It also facilitates students and other groups' integration and field learning in various communities to develop mutual understanding, existential learning, and a greater appreciation of community life and people's initiatives.
Recently, ASI engaged in a partnership with Maximo T. Kalaw Institute for Sustainable Development (MTKISD) and other organizations to co-create a sustainable future through the" Ecosystem-based Community-Centered Sustainable Bioregional Community Organization and Management (ECSOM)" Program. ASI later articulated this as the "Co-creating Sustainable Bioregional Communities (CSBCom)" Program. This is a paradigm shift in theoretical orientation and praxis that re-orients various disciplines and the practice of social development to focus on the wholeness of life and all life forms. In the ECSOM synthesis, the ASI President, Dr. Mina M. Ramirez, summarized the Program as follows: "All stakeholders of the bio-regional community – upland and lowland farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous groups, business, education, health, church, and socially-enlightened local officials – will engage themselves in a long-term integral development process that is culturally-rooted, contextual, experiential and participatory. In and through a Living Faith, it is hoped that the energy that will radiate from the process will cause the evolvement and organic growth of community-based economics (not just enterprise-based), new urbanism that will prevent the natural and human resources to be depleted. It is hoped that the human habitat or the new human settlement will be an externalization of a vision of God's City. All human beings may live a decent, dignified life in harmony with nature.
ASI undertakes culturally-based studies premised on research integral to education, organization, and action toward social transformation. At this time of economic globalization, ASI recognizes the ever-increasing gap between the monetarily rich and the monetarily poor. Research is a way to "honor human experience" by highlighting people's empowering efforts towards integral development. In scientific inquiry, ASI blends the quantitative and qualitative approaches to surface the many facets of a social phenomenon. Research findings need to be disseminated to both policymakers and, in popular forms, to social practitioners.

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