PIARIST PROJECTS THAT THE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN WILL BE DIRECTED 2014-2015

The Piarists mission transforms the world through education, by guaranteeing a quality education to those who have more difficulty in acceding it.

The ITAKA-Escolapios is network of solidarity that connects schools and educational projects in different countries, from the conviction that all the children and youth have the rights to access a quality and integral education. And that the solidarity has no boundaries and is obliged to fight for those who encounter more difficulties.

The role of education as a non-substitutable pillar of human development is un-doubtable. It widens the options and capacities of the children of today, and tomorrows’ adults. It allows acceding abilities and knowledge, changing lives in material and non-material aspects, it generates employment possibilities, a better health and economic status, and it favors fundamental human values like equality, peace and tolerance among the people as well as respect to the environment.

The adult world habitually creates educational projects which are oriented to attend the needs of the children but without listening them enough.

The adults and the youngsters they often look life in a different ways and yet complementary. Those can be difficult for an adult person maybe is easy for a younger one. And those are cannot be so important for an adult, are can be very important for a child.

The article 12 of the convention of the rights of the children clearly pointed out that “they have rights to be consulted on situations that affect them, that their opinions must be noted considering their age and maturity”.

With the solidarity campaign in this school year, we wanted to give once again one step forward in our commitment in favor for the education of the world by helping them to advance, through actions that can guarantee a primary quality teaching for a better future to all the children. And we want to do it by giving voice to those who many times are not being heard.

The way in which an adult person looks at life, differs a lot from the children’s way of looking and seeing it. So let’s listen to them, that they themselves directly tell us their needs, their illusions and their dreams. They are the children of the countries that are most in need who will show us their educational realities.

Let us know the Piarist projects in other countries, especially from those who are in need through the eyes of the children in which we will channel our solidarity, so that little by little this great objective will become a reality: a world without children out of school.

PIARIST PROJECTS THAT THE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN WILL BE DIRECTED 2014-2015

Cameroun:

There are ten (10) Piaristsʹ Schools that form part of the Itaka-Escolapios network.

• Bamendjou: The center with six scattered primary schools with around 1,700 students. The school has a canteen, a cultural center that gives classes in Information Technology, English or Spanish among others and a literacy program for adults especially women, with 180 students.
• In Bamenda we manage three (3) primary schools with more than 700 students. The 3 schools have a school canteen. In the same place we run a center for non-formal education for agricultural production; a school cooperative for school supplies, food and some basic products at a very low prices; and a cultural center with a library, information technology courses and literacy program for 90 adult women.
• In Bafia, we have a primary school with more than 730 students, also with school canteen, cultural center for language courses, information technology, women’s’ promotion and recreational activities for the youth.

Equatorial Guinea:

In the city of Akureman, in the South-center province of Equatorial Guinea, the Piarists have been working for more than 25 years for the children to access a quality free education.

To obtain 50 francs (less than a cent of euro) in order to have a ball pen or for them to buy medicine is considered already as a luxury by many of these families. We can affirm that almost all of our students are living in a survival level of life.

India:

Towards the end of the year 2011, the Itaka-Escolapios started to assist in managing a school in Kamda in the state of Jharkhand. In this small and isolated town of 10,000 populations we can find the school of “Calasanz Ashram” with 515 students, in which majority of them came from an extremely poor family of farmers.

Bolivia:

In the Andes mountain of Bolivia with more than 3,500 meters high in altitude, the Itaka-Escolapios manages two schools in the municipality of Anzaldo and Cocapata.

• Anzaldo is a municipality with vast geographical area of 642 Km², situated in the altitude of more than 3,000 meters high. Since 20 years ago, the Piarists are responsible in running the Colegio San Jose de Calasanz with around 800 students.
• The school of Cocapata with 300 students is located in the municipality on top of 3,150 meters high in altitude, almost 5 hours from the nearest city of Cochabamba with road that is impassable during rainy season.

Equatorial Guinea

Akonibe is a city of Equatorial Guinea in the province of WeléNzas, located in the southeast of the country. It has a population of more than 2,000 people.

The Pious Schools arrived in Akonibe 25 years ago and since then a lot of youth had pass through in the boarding school in which its labor is recognized all over the country.

India

Kamda is a small town formed by scattered houses and very small village and can be found 30 kilometers away from the school.

In the said village a small boarding house annexed to the school allows the 50 children who live more than 4 hours away from the school in guaranteeing their education.

Indonesia

In April of 2013, the Piarist Fathers started its first community in Indonesia, in the City of Atambua (West Timor), a city with a good number of children and youth who came from rural places to study. The Piarists wanted to guarantee the continuity of the studies of the youth by building a boarding school in the City.

Bolivia

The Itaka-Escolapios together with the Piarist Fathers manage three (3) boarding houses to guarantee the education as an objective for hundreds of children who are living far from the schools. The three boarding houses allows a better number of girls enrollees, giving that situation that families usually pull-out their daughters from the school because they have to walk alone in a great distance.

• The boarding house in Anzaldo is functioning for 25 years now, in this school year it has 196 slots for children. It started after knowing the great distance between the school and the houses that the majority of the children have to travel and that a lot of minor have to leave school or that they cannot continue to study as they wish.
• The nearest community to the center of Cocapata in which the school is located is 5 hours by walking. In many cases they have to cross rivers or peak of more than 4,000 meters high in altitude. These make the need for a boarding house to facilitate the education of 180 children this school year.
• The boarding house located in the community of Morocomarca, with around 4,000 meters high and with a very cold climate all year round, especially at night. Founded its needs from the urgency of guaranteeing education for 160 minors who live in scattered communities very far from the school.

Socio-cultural Centers

The Itaka-Escolapios and the Order of the Pious Schools administers in Brazil, Cameroun, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and Venezuela a great number of Socio-cultural centers that facilitate and compliment the continuity of education of the children with programs like tutorial, rest and creation, adults literacy and formation activities among others.