Loyola-ICAM College of Engineering and Technology

When education was only for the elite and the rich, St Ignatius of Loyola (Founder of the Jesuit Order) founded the Roman College and announced free education.From that time the Jesuits have effectively used education as the key to empowerment of the marginalized and they applied education as the mantra to make the neglected gain leadership in the society. During the colonization of South America, the Jesuits founded the so called ?Jesuit Republics? and they set not only the slaves free but educated and trained them in music and fine-arts on par with the Europeans. And in the 1960s, especially after the General Congregation 32 (the highest policy making body of the Jesuit Order), the Jesuits all over the globe took the preferential option for the poor and the marginalized. And it was concretised in South India, especially in Tamilnadu, as preferential option for the rural poor and the Dalits who are socially marginalized, economically impoverished, religiously ignored and politically neglected.