Wayne Dziekan

Rev. Wayne Dziekan is a priest of the Diocese of Gaylord, where he directs the diocese's Secretariat for Justice and Peace and has served in Hispanic ministry. For nearly twenty years he has worked one-on-one with members of the Traverse City immigrant and migrant community on social justice issues — accompaniment work that is local, individual, and sustained rather than programmatic.

He is a co-founder of the Justice and Peace Advocacy Center, a Traverse City-based 501(c)(3) that advocates for and serves migrant, immigrant, and seasonal worker communities in northern Michigan. The center grew out of the same parish-level advocacy that has defined much of his ministry.

Wayne holds a Certificate in Catholic Social Doctrine from the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation and the Catholic University of America, and has visited or worked in a number of Latin American countries over the years, with particular attention to Catholic social teaching as it applies to coffee producers and community development.

He has been involved in micro-finance projects for the last fifteen years, especially in Bolivia and more recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — where On the Ground also works.