An Interview with David Holdcroft

by Gordon Nary

Gordon: When did you attend Saint Ignatius College Adelaide and what is one of your fondest memories when you were there?

David: I attended Saint Ignatius college during the 1970s. It was a time of experimentation in education, many new things being tried. It was also a new school so there was a sense of adventure about it all. Probably the fondest memory I have was during a football game. We were a new school and it was in an immigrant area, so we came from different sporting traditions and basically were not very good at any. We always lost our matches, and this particular Saturday was no exception. It was muddy and cold and I was playing up forward. The ball only came there once or twice and on one occasion I dropped the mark in front of the goal but was able to recover the ball and hand passed it off to Sammy Diono who goaled. We were all prepared for the normal telling off that our coaches gave but we had a new coach that day and he asked us at half time what we had done well. Nobody said anything. Then he publicly commended me for selfless play and told the team that's how he wanted us all to play. From feeling like a total failure, I grew about 6 centimetres. We still lost but it taught me that success lies in the way you engage in something rather than the end result.

Gordon: When did you attend Melbourne College of Divinity, what degree did you earn, what was your favorite course, and why was that course your favorite

David: I attended it over many years, as a lay person part time then as a scholastic (trainee) Jesuit full time, earning a Bachelors, then a Masters in Theology. I have to say biblical studies was my favourite as I loved analyzing the narrative and seeing the poetry in it and allowing my life experience to dialogue with the texts. The book of Job and th4e gospel of Mark were my two favourites. 

Gordon: What prompted your interest in the Jesuit Refugee Service?

David: It wasn't really an interest before I started! I certainly knew of it but I didn't see it as a priority. When I was nearing ordination my provincial, Mark Raper, asked me where I sensed God calling me. He put before me 5 job alternatives, one of which was JRS. JRS in Australia had reduced its work scope but there was a need for a kind of reinvigoration and resetting the direction as all it was doing was fundraising and a very important chaplaincy at Villawood Detention centre in Sydney's west.

I had been studying then for about 5 years and I was always passionate about working with poor people and had participated in the start up of several houses for homeless people. I thought that I might be a good fit for JRS in its particular situation and that this was a good way to re-enter the workforce after the years of study. 

Gordon: When did you serve as Country Director Jesuit Refugee Service Australia and what were your primary responsibilities?

David: It was a long time ago! 2004-8. As I said JRS needed restarting and while I continued the chaplaincy at Villawood detention centre in Sydney's west, I was discerning how JRS could be useful in an Australia that, on one hand, is paranoid with fear of asylum seekers and refugees and on another can extremely hospitable, when they feel themselves safe. This called me to look at the JRS criteria for mission which focuses on taking up missions that no one else does or wants, and which has a multiplier effect, drawing others to come in and do the same thing. At that time a fellow Jesuit who was a trained doctor saw a young man on a bicycle who was having a fit in the middle of a busy Sydney intersection. He went over and after a while was able to talk to the man: he was an asylum seeker who had appealed a negative ruling. In Australia at the time such people were removed from any social or medical supports - he couldn't go to a pharmacy to purchase the medicine he needed to control his medical condition. He couldn't go to hospital either. His only option was to go to a private doctor and pay the full fee himself and buy medicines without government subsidy.

When I enquired with other agencies none of them would touch this group of people as it would compromise their government funding or put them at risk of law suits. Eventually we decided to open a house for such people to at least give them a roof over their heads and some food (they could not access homeless shelters either). Then I put the word out and we elicited many offers of accommodation from people who were working internationally and decided that instead of renting, they would make their premises a welcome haven for these asylum seekers. The response was amazing. Very soon we had the keys to about 15 houses whose owners were temporarily out of th country who were landlords that thought this was a good way of realizing on their investment not so much in money terms but in social terms.

Gordon: Please tell is about your service as Consultant - Strategic review and planning for JRS Professional and Post Secondary Education Jesuit Refugee Service Jesuit Refugee Service, Rome Italy 

David: JRS has been delivering some tertiary education courses in various places in Africa and the Middle East. The courses were great but as a project this was not strategic - the model was really geared to people being prepared for resettlement at a time when the amounts of people being resettled were declining. And the diplomas we were hosting were not transferable outside the United States which was the source of the online courses. A review had been done already so I was tasked to implement the recommendations, basically to make it all into a project and to obtain courses that were more relevant for the refugees and could lead to work. In fact we made that part of the logic of the project, to get a job at the end of it. We called the new program "JRS-Pathfinder" and it continues to be quite successful.

Gordon: When did you serve as Country Director Jesuit Refugee Service South Africa and what were some of the primary challenges that you had to address?

David: That was from 2009 to 2011 or 12, before the Post Secondary Education job. That was a huge challenge: the program had fallen into disarray: things were disorganized and the UNHCR was unhappy with us. I had to reform it from the ground up, bringing our costs under control, laying off staff, getting some new funding, and initiating a process of review of all our projects. I only did it for a short time but we managed a turn around.

Gordon: When were you appointed Regional Director based in Johannesburg, South Africa and what were your primary responsibilities?

David: I was appointed in June 2010, at the same time I was country director of South Africa. The region was also underperforming, there were financial troubles and we were losing funding. Staff were terribly unhappy and the refugees in our care were likewise underwhelmed by the quality of our services. So the turn around I initiated in South Africa was extended to the whole region. The prime thing was we had to re-engage with the refugees we worked with, rebuild their trust and then, with them, design the programs they wanted and needed. Finally we had to prove to funders we could deliver innovative programs in a cost efficient, well managed manner. Southern Africa was never "sexy" as a region. We had to stand out in some way. The strategy took about 4 years but we managed to recreate the region as a mission centred refugee focused work, capable of responding to changes in refugee needs and always, always listening to them and their desires. It was a challenging and wonderful time. 

Gordon: When were you appointed Senior Economic Inclusion Specialist at Jesuit Refugee Service in Rome and what are your primary responsibilities?

David: I was appointed at the beginning of this year although I had been working towards it for about a year or so. It is to oversight animate and coordinate the economic inclusion, sometimes called livelihood activities in JRS globally. As I say often my job is to help refugees get jobs. It is quite different to an educational model even though it sometimes entails facilitating training. But mostly it is analyzing the context, finding out how the economy works in an area where the refugees live and where the likely growth points are, then working with government and employers, chambers of commerce and so on to clear the logjams in economy to free up opportunities for work not only for refugees but for locals as well. It is very different work but sometimes has high impact: it can really change refugee lives. 

Gordon: What is you fondest memory of your service at Jesuit Refugee Service?

David: So many! It is when a project goes well and does what it was intended to do. And you can see it had an impact. I think of the Pathfinder project in Kakuma camp in northern Kenya. We introduced a lot of new things with it like online freelancing training, online university education, all with different providers - here we were, a Jesuit organization contracting out our training! But we needed the flexibility to be able to change courses at relatively short notice. When a refugee tells a story of his or her success in life, the rebuilding of his/her life's project and you know we had a part in that, sometimes were the key that changed things, even if they mention JRS or not - well that is the best thing honestly! Then I conducted a market systems analysis to help the program take the next step, to move into the development of market systems. I went their to verify our market research and we had a seminar which was predominantly refugees. There was a whole group there whose value chain we hadn't studied, but they came so they could learn the skills to do it for themselves. This is the goal of all refugee work, to enable the refugee (and their host) communities to do things themselves and contribute to the greater good, without people like JRS!

Gordon: What is your saddest memory while working at Jesuit Refugee Service?

David: It is a mix of sadness and profound admiration. A refugee woman named Odette, who lived in Dzaleka Camp in Malawi, came to me with a letter from the hospital she had just visited in Lilongwe. The letter was in English which she did not speak. I asked Bernadette, who sometimes interpreted for me, to read it and interpret it for Odette in Swahili. The letter said that Odette had cancer which had metastasized and that, without deep x-ray therapy she probably had about 6 months to live. Xray therapy was not available in Malawi but is available in South Africa which is a two hour plane flight south. As a refugee she neither had the funds for the plane fare let alone for the treatment. The following Sunday she was there at mass like any other parishioner. Later I gave her the sacrament of the sick and she did indeed die about three months after that. I will never forget seeing her at mass just like another person but I know brimming over with courage and with a deep faith.

Gordon: Thank you for an exceptional interview and for all of the people that you have helped via The Jesuit Refugee Service.