Our future Hope..

Medino Abraham is a Guyanese Jesuit Who is at present engaged with a University course in Pedagogy in South Brazil. Last semester, as part of his pratical work, he had the chance to experience working with a branch of Fe Y Alegria, run by the Jesuits of Porto Alegre. He says he found the experience very helpful “because it offered me an opportunity to catch a glimpse of one of the dimensions of the Jesuit´s involvement in Education for the poor in Latin America”.

Fé y Alegria ( literally, Faith and Joy) was founded in Venezuela in 1955 as a non-governmental organization to establish direct contact with the poor and the needy. It supports the educative services both on the peripheries of the big cities and among the poor of the rural areas. Fr. José Maria Vélaz S.J, the founder of the movement, best capsulated this ideal when he said: “Where the asphalt ends and the town changes its name, Fé Y Alegria began”.

Fé y Alegria has its philosophical roots in the work of the famous Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who developed a model of Popular education, which was quite different to what he felt was the traditional “elitist” system of education found in Latin America.

The movement operates differently in most places and countries, depending on the needs of the people in that country. In Brazil, the movement was established in 1981; and the branch here in the southern state of Brazil has been running for the past four years. The service offered is for children who are victims of sexual abuse, enforce child labor and other forms of ill treatment. The school acts both as a symbol of solidarity and provides a place of protection, while as the same time offers an opportunity to develop and transformed their gifts.

My weekly visits to the school were on Friday afternoons. I began by getting to know the children, and to familiarize myself with the activities carried out by the institution. The small building structure serves 105 children from the ages of five to 14, and has five teachers. Because of the need to protect and develop the children´s potential, this branch of Fe y Alegria has adopted the model of non-formal education; in other words, it does not teach formal subjects like mathematics and Portugues, but instead used the insights of Piaget and Friere. (The children go to a regular school in the mornings and in the afternoon go to classes at Fe e Alegria). At Fe y Alegria it offeres classes in art, sport, music, dance, care for the environment and computing. Also included in the school curriculum is training in human formation, which is moulded by the Ignatian Spirituality.

My experience in the school was very consoling: I was edified, especially to see my brothers in the Brazilian Society of Jesus reaching out to the poor so creatively through education. Fé y Alegria is offering the little ones an opportunity to be better persons and, despite their own past experience  of being abused by the world, help them to make a positive contribution to that same world. In protecting and caring for these children, who are our future hope, Fe y Alegria stands as an excellent example of Jesus ‘own commission to the disciples: “Let the little children come to me!”

taken from the Jesuits and Friends Magazine.