COME AND SEE, THE REALITY BEHIND
Two years ago, in the solidarity campaign of Itaka-Escolapios we affirmed our conviction that “the Education multiplies the future”. Thus, the indispensable role of education in the integral development of a person is the urgency that no children are out of school. Last school year under the motto “We are for you, we educate with you”, we deepened on the gifts of every person. Gifts that were developed through education and that we are called to put for the service of others.
In this school year we wanted to continue delving on the transformative power of education, by knowing more on how the Pious Schools promote quality integral education and accessible to the impoverished corners of the world. Corners like the Roman Trastevere, at the time of Calasanz, that needs an educational work which focuses on the future of the children and youth, majority of which are in the poverty situation.
These are realities in which we find it lacking, yes, but also skills, values, creativity… and especially a great desire to get ahead through education, in which we recall and reaffirm the great value of the Piarists mission.
If something characterizes the educational work inspired by St. Joseph Calasanz, that is the centrality on the children and youth, by which the fundamental orientation of all the actions center on the fulfillment and the happiness of these. This central role of children and youth must permeate the entire educational action and, before anything else, in the same way when we approach the reality. Calasanz invites us to look at reality through the eyes of a child, especially the eyes of a poor child.
In this particular point of view, we will try to do it on this solidarity campaign so that through this vision we can be closer to the trastevere of the present world, where the Pious Schools and the Itaka-Escolapios network are present.
As St. Joseph Calasanz said, “the integral educational work needs to go down, in order to give light to the poorest and the most vulnerable one´s”. Those who look the reality from this height, which is the lowliness, are those who can really respond to the needs on what can be seen: appeases the fears, encourage illusions and give reason to dream…
This Calasanzian intuition also link to an idea that the present world is promoting within the educational environment, like the defense for the childhood. The idea is that the children should not only be the subject of those actions for their benefits, but rather they must be also an active part or protagonists in constructing for a better world. In this it was established, including the convention on the Rights of the children pointed out, that the opinion of the children should be heard for those things that will affect them as well as keeping in mind of their age and maturity level.
From these approaches we will start the Solidarity Campaign 2014-15 with the motto “come and see the reality behind”. We wanted to cultivate in all places where Itaka-Escolapios is, this simple glance, deep and committed on the different realities of our world. So that through this commitment we can make a year more, a network of a great wave of solidarity to help the Piarists’ educational mission, where there are children more in need, where it is more feel as the young Malala said (Nobel Prize winner for peace 2014) “a child, a teacher, a pencil and a book can change the world.”