SCHOLAS OCCURRENTES - OLTRE L'EDUCAZIONE FORMALE - DAR VALOR A LA EDUCACIÓN INFORMAL Y AL "SERVICE LEARING"

CONCLUSO IL QUARTO CONGRESSO INTERNAZIONALE

DAR VALOR A LA EDUCACIÓN INFORMAL Y AL "SERVICE LEARING"

En Castel Gandolfo más de trescientos participantes de escuelas y universidades de más de cien naciones.Cristianos, judíos y musulmanes; rectores universitarios, docentes, pero también estudiantes, para intercambiar ideas, intercambiar experiencias, crear redes, planificar el futuro, para una universidad y una escuela al servicio de la persona, de cada persona.

UMEC-WUCT participó en el Congreso y presentó los objetivos de la Unión.

SCHOLAS OCCURRENTS

GIVE VALUE TO INFORMAL EDUCATION AND "SERVICE LEARING"

CONCLUSION OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS

In Castel Gandolfo more than three hundred participants of schools and universities of more than one hundred nations. Christians, Jews and Muslims; university rectors, teachers, but also students, to exchange ideas, exchange experiences, create networks, plan for the future, for a university and a school at the service of the person, of each person.

UMEC-WUCT participated in the Congress and presented the objectives of the Union

IL QUARTO CONGRESSO MONDIALE DI SCHOLAS 

A Castel Gandolfo oltre trecento partecipanti provenienti da scuole e università di oltre cento nazioni. Cristiani, ebrei e musulmani; rettori universitari,  docenti, ma anche studenti, per confrontarsi, scambiare esperienze, creare reti, progettare il futuro, per un'università e una scuola al servizio della persona, di ogni persona. Anche l'UMEC-WUCT ha partecipato, illustrando le finalità dell'Unione.

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 È una “vocazione specifica per l’educazione informale” quella portata avanti dalla Scholas Occurrentes, il progetto educativo che Papa Francesco appoggiava quando era Cardinale e arcivescovo di Buenos Aires e che ora si è trasformata in fondazione di diritto pontificio. E a definire la loro vocazione è stato l’arcivescovo Vincenzo Zani, segretario della Congregazione per l’Educazione Cattolica.

L’occasione è la presentazione del IV Congresso Internazionale delle Cattedre Scholas, dal 27 al 29 giugno a Castel Gandolfo. Il tema del Congresso è “Università e scuola. Verso un rilancio dell’università in uscita”.

“Siamo contenti di far notare – ha detto l’arcivescovo Zani - che la Congregazione dell’Educazione Cattolica ha accompagnato in la Fondazione di Scholas Occurrentes, questa esperienza che è nata a Buenos Aires dall’allora cardinale Jorge Mario Bergoglio”.

Ha proseguito l’arcivescovo: “Da cinque anni abbiamo colto l’originalità di questa esperienza, perché sottolinea soprattutto l’educazione informale, che si può sviluppare fuori dalle aule scolastiche, fuori dalle aule universitarie. Noi, che come Congregazione abbiamo seguito le scuole cattoliche di tutto il mondo, eravamo attenti al tema della educazione informale, ma da quando abbiamo conosciuto Scholas Occurrentes abbiamo visto che qui c’è una vocazione specifica. Si va oltre i mezzi classici, l’aula si apre, gli strumenti sono più belli e interessanti”.

Il Congresso, promosso dalla Pontificia Fondazione Scholas Occurrentes, nata a Buenos Aires per mano dell’allora arcivescovo Jorge Mario Bergoglio, si propone di utilizzare lo strumento dell’educazione al fine di promuovere cambiamenti sociali. Durante la tre giorni, docenti di 75 Università provenienti da 30 Paesi di tutto il mondo si confronteranno su innovazione educativa, sviluppo integrale sostenibile, dialogo interculturale e interreligioso.

Le cattedre Scholas approfondiscono un tema particolare ogni anno, e quest’anno il tema è quello dei rifugiati.

“Il primo congresso – ha raccontato Italo Fiorin – aveva come tema ‘Università e scuola: un muro o un ponte?’. L’università non è una cittadella dove si rinchiude un sapere. L’università è invitata ad essere risorsa, la cattedra è quella del magistero di Papa Francesco”.

http://web.scholasoccurrentes.org/it/

ONLY CHANGING EDUCATION CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD!

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Pope Francis  : " .... Only by changing education can we change the world. To this end, I should like to offer you some suggestions:

1. First, it is important to “network”. Networking means uniting schools and universities for the sake of improving the work education and research, drawing upon everyone’s strong points for greater effectiveness on the intellectual and cultural levels.

Networking also means uniting the various branches of knowledge, the sciences and fields of study, in order to face complex challenges with an inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approach, as recommended by Veritatis Gaudium (cf. n. 4c).

Networking means creating spaces for encounter and dialogue within educational institutions, and encouraging similar spaces outside our institutions, with people of other cultures, other traditions and different religions, so that a Christian humanism can consider the overall reality of humanity today.

Networking also means making the school an educating community where teachers and students are brought together not only by the teaching curriculum, but also by a curriculum of life and experience that can educate the different generations to mutual sharing. This is so important so as not to lose our roots!

Moreover, the challenges facing our human family today are global, in a more wide-ranging sense than is often thought. Catholic education is not limited to forming minds to a broader outlook, capable of embracing distant realities. It also recognized that mankind’s moral responsibility today does not just extend through space, but also through time, and that present choices have repercussions for future generations.

2. Another challenge facing education today is one that I pointed out in my Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: “we must not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope!” (n. 86). With this appeal, I meant to encourage the men and women of our time to face social change optimistically, so that they can immerse themselves in realty with the light that radiates from the promise of Christian salvation.

We are called not to lose hope, because we must offer hope to the global world of today. “Globalizing hope” and “supporting the hopes of globalization” are basic commitments in the mission of Catholic education, as stated in the recent document of the Congregation for Catholic Education Educating to Fraternal Humanism (cf. nn. 18-19). A globalization bereft of hope or vision can easily be conditioned by economic interests, which are often far removed from a correct understanding of the common good, and which easily give rise to social tensions, economic conflicts and abuses of power. We need to give a soul to the global world through an intellectual and moral formation that can support the good things that globalization brings and correct the harmful ones.

These are important goals that can be attained by the growth of scientific research carried out by universities and present, too, in the mission of the Gravissimum Educationis Foundation Quality research, which looks to a horizon rich in challenges. Some of these challenges, as I noted in my Encyclical Laudato Si’, have to do with processes of global interdependence. The latter is, on the one hand, a beneficial historical force since it marks a greater cohesion among human beings; on the other, it gives rise to injustices and brings out the close relationship between grave forms of human poverty and the ecological crises of our world. The response is to be sought in developing and researching an integral ecology. Again, I should like to emphasize the economic challenge, based on researching better models of development corresponding to a more authentic understanding of human fulfilment and capable of correcting some of the perverse mechanisms of consumption and production. Then too, there is the political challenge: the power of technology is constantly expanding. One of its effects is to spread a throw-away culture that engulfs objects and persons without distinction. It entails a vision of man as a predator and the world in which we live as a resource to be despoiled at will.

Certainly, there is no shortage of work for academics and researchers engaged with the Gravissimum Educationis Foundation!

3. The work before you, with the support you give to innovative educational projects, must respect three essential criteria in order to be effective:

First, identity. This calls for consistency and continuity with the mission of schools, universities and research centres founded, promoted or accompanied by the Church and open to all. Those values are essential for following the way marked out by Christian civilization and by the Church’s mission of evangelization. In this way, you can help to indicate what paths to take, in order to give up-to-date answers to today’s problems, with a preferential regard for those who are most needy.

Another essential point is quality. This is the sure beacon that must shed light on every enterprise of study, research and education. It is necessary for achieving those “outstanding interdisciplinary centres” recommended by the Constitution Veritatis Gaudium (cf. n. 5) and which the Foundation Gravissimum Educationis aspires to support.

Then too, your work cannot overlook the goal of the common good. The common good is difficult to define in our societies characterized by the coexistence of citizens, groups and peoples belonging to different cultures, traditions and faiths. We must broaden the horizons of the common good, educating everyone to understand that we belong to one human family.

To fulfil your mission, therefore, you must lay its foundations in a way consistent with our Christian identity; establish means appropriate for the quality of study and research; and pursue goals in harmony with service to the common good.

A plan of thought and action based on these solid pillars will be able to contribute, through education, to building a future in which the dignity of the person and universal fraternity are global resources upon which every citizen of the world can draw....... "

Rome, 25th juin 2018 

Read: ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

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EXPANDING THE FORTRESS -- EXPANDIENDO LA FORTALEZA

The policies, the profiteers and the people shaped by EU's border externalisation programme

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The EU has made migration control a central goal of its foreign relations, rapidly expanding border externalisation measures that require neighbouring countries to act as Europe's border guards. This report examines 35 countries, prioritised by the EU, and finds authoritarian regimes emboldened to repress civil society, vulnerable refugees forced to turn to more dangerous and deadly routes, and European arms and security firms booming off the surge in funding for border security systems and technologies.

The plight of the world’s 66 million forcibly displaced persons seems to only trouble the European Union’s conscience when the media spotlight turns on a tragedy at Europe’s borders. Only one European nation – Germany - is even in the top ten countries worldwide that receive refugees leaving the vast majority of forcibly displaced persons hosted by some of the world’s poorest nations. The invisibility therefore is only broken when border communities such as Calais, Lampedusa, Lesvos become featured in the news as desperate people fleeing violence end up dead, detained or trapped.

These tragedies aren’t just unfortunate results of war or conflict elsewhere, they are also the direct result of Europe’s policies on migration since the Schengen agreement in 1985. This approach has focused on fortifying borders, developing ever more sophisticated surveillance and tracking of people, and increasing deportations while providing ever fewer legal options for residency despite ever greater need. This has led many forcibly displaced persons unable to enter Europe legally and forced into ever more dangerous routes to escape violence and conflict.

What is less well-known is that the same European-made tragedy plays out well beyond our borders in countries as far away as Senegal and Azerbaijan. This is due to another pillar of Europe’s approach to migration, known as border externalisation. Since 1992 and even more aggressively since 2005, the EU has developed policies to externalise Europe’s border so that forcibly displaced people never get to Europe’s borders in the first place. This involves agreements with Europe’s neighbouring countries to accept deported persons and to adopt the same policies of border control, improved tracking of people and fortified borders as Europe. In other words, these agreements have turned Europe’s neighbours into Europe’s new border guards. And because they are so far from Europe’s shores and media, the impacts are almost completely invisible to EU citizens.

This report seeks to shine a spotlight on the policies that underpin this externalisation of Europe’s borders, the agreements that have been signed, the corporations and entities that profit, and the consequences for forcibly displaced people as well as the countries and populations that host them. It is the third in a series titled Border Wars that have examined Europe’s border policies and shown how the arms and security industry has helped shape European border security policies and have then reaped the rewards for ever more border security measures and contracts.

This report shows a significant growth in border externalisation measures and agreements since 2005 and a massive acceleration since the November 2015 Valletta Europe – Africa Summit. Using a plethora of new instruments, in particular the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), the Migration Partnership Framework and the Refugee Facility for Turkey, the European Union and individual member states are now providing millions of euros for an array of projects to stop migration of certain people from taking place on or across European territory……

 Read: Expanding the fortress

Look at:  https://youtu.be/SsssVTm2fi4