JPIC_en – Page 12 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

A wind of change. Stories of life and social ministeriality

8 November, 2020 by Alberto de la Portilla

The Comboni Fathers and Sisters came to be because of the Plan of St Daniel Comboni to regenerate Africa with Africa itself. The Plan was first published in 1864, but was revised ad up-dated by Comboni himself as many as seven times: it was an inspiration from Above, the fruit of the compassionate love of the Good Shepherd for that Africa which Comboni called “The Black Pearl”; and also participation from below, with varied expressions of mission, strategies, the involvement of ecclesial groups, philanthropists, scientists and geographers, to provide personnel and funds to carry it out.

Comboni’s biographers recognise in him certain fundamental characteristics, among which his practical and dynamic foresight and his unshakeable confidence in the regeneration of Africa, despite obstacles, crosses, misunderstandings, criticism and calumnies; proof of this is to be seen in the fact that two Africans, Daniele Sorur Pharim Den (1860-1900) and Fortunata Quascè (1845-1899), both Sudanese and rescued from slavery, in the inclusive vision of the Comboni project, immediately espoused the Plan and, through their ministry, revealed its efficacy.

The first of the two described the true conditions of the Blacks and emphasised that the regeneration of the Africans could come about under two conditions: breaking the yoke of slavery and giving the Africans the same opportunities for education that were being given to all other peoples. The second dedicated all her life to the training and education of African girls, so that, once freed of all slavery, they would, in turn, set in motion processes of regeneration in the very heart of Black Africa.

For more than 150 years, the heirs of Comboni, enlightened from Above, with the same determination and confidence and moved by compassionate love for the poorest and most abandoned, gave form to the dream of regenerating Africa through social ministry, adapting the Plan to times and places under the breath of the Spirit who “renews the face of the earth” (Ps 103,30). Here we have an important patrimony to be known and valued, especially today, so as to oppose the system of neo-liberalism of rapacious predators which concentrates riches in the hands of a few and promotes the throwaway culture, excluding billions of people from a full life.

This is why this year, 2020, the year the Comboni Missionaries have dedicated to ministeriality, the General Administrations of the Comboni Family of consecrated, secular and laypersons, have asked for an ad hoc commission to publish a book containing stories of life lived in social ministry and, at the same time, to expand research by mapping our presences and commitments, involving the communities of the Comboni Family scattered throughout the four continents. It was proposed to:

Elaborate the common criteria, modalities and principles of existing experiences, placing them in the context of an institutional framework.
Evaluate how the various ministerialities have an impact in terms of social transformation on reality and how our ministerial presence may respond to the real demands of the signs of the times.

This work was doubtless very ambitious, but, at the same time limited, in that it is always difficult to enclose in a document all the riches of what is lived. There is also an embarrassment of riches in choosing from among the experiences of 3,500 consecrated, secular and lay men and women who operate according to the Comboni charism, in Africa, in the Americas, in Asia and in Europe.

The book entitled “We are mission. Testimonies of Social Ministeriality in the Comboni Family”, was published in June 2020, in four languages (Italian, English, Spanish and French). The book is the fruit of the collaboration of 61 missionaries who were invited to tell the story of their lived social ministry; two external experts made a sapiential reading of the material, indicating the strong points of ministerial commitment and the knots to be undone for a more effective change to the system.

The narrations and sharing contained in this text help to understand that, though there may be a multiplicity of situations, approaches and initiatives, the social dimension is the horizontal axis of all ministry, in the sense that every service, understood as a gift from God, by its own intrinsic power, proclaims the liberation of the oppressed, “The year of grace” (Lk 4,18-19) and reveals to the peoples “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rv 21,1) in the original and providential plan of God.

The account of the praxis of social ministeriality, therefore, enriches the reference paradigm of the mission that is ever more incarnated in the complexity of the world of today and attentive to the signs of the times and places, so as to be able to re-announce to all peoples the faith in Jesus Christ, using appropriate languages and modes of presence.

The process under way will be long and gradual but it may avail itself of some themes and suggestions brought out in this and other sharing that will be expressed in the general mapping of the Comboni Family. It is also planned to have a time for recollection, deepening, synthesis, discernment and the re-launching of the Comboni Social Ministry in Rome, in December 2020.

The starting point is not mere emptiness or just theories but events that have been lived and narrated in the daily life of the Comboni mission; they may be summarised as follows:

Seeing: with “penetrating eyes and an open heart” to receive the challenges and opportunities for announcing the Gospel.

Being neighbourly: in the dynamic of a missionary Church that is “going out”, that lives in the peripheries and touches the wounds of the brothers and sisters, taking upon itself the odour of the sheep and the lifestyle of the poor.

Encountering: living and promoting the mystic of encounter. Professing catholicity and shortening the distance between faiths and cultures, by means of dialogue and ecumenism, towards global fraternity.

Regenerate: allowing ourselves to be challenged by reality and making ourselves busy looking for the five loaves and two fish of the little ones, the widow’s mite and water for the purification of the peoples.

Transforming: there is no more time for modifications; it is time for change! It is time to confront the causes that generate inequality between peoples and the throwaway culture.

Celebrating: All that gives consistency to social ministry and configures the men and women disciples to the Paschal Mystery of Christ which supports the faith in the daily life of the mission.

Setting out once again: Under the gaze of the Spirit, there is no longer room for self-glorification or vainglory; all is tested in the flames of the fire that purifies and moves to dare to set out once again, taking unknown pathways and roads since the ways of God are forever more and more.

The ambits of social ministeriality

The heart of social ministeriality is one that listens to the cry of the poor and takes their part so that their expectations may be met and make them capable of transformation; in the Evangelical logic of Our Lord: “Though He was rich, he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty” (2 Cor 8,9).

As a Comboni Family, we have always worked in the social dimension: the formation of consciences and the preparation of professional leaders; media and communication; care and attention towards people, health and education; existential and geographical peripheries (e.g. caring for street children, situations of war and conflict, ethnic minorities; trafficking of minors and women; human rights; prisons, pastoralists…); human and pastoral mobility of migrants; protection of creation; liturgy and catechesis.

Perspectives

The process set in motion that places the emphasis on the social dimension of ministeriality cannot and must not be seen as an action that is limited in time. It is a long journey, according to the living tradition of the Church. It must be sustained, nourished and reviewed with the accelerated pace of epochal change, for the purpose of rendering efficacious and creative the missionary and charismatic presence of the Comboni family in the world of today.

Consequently, the social dimension of ministeriality invites us to review the idea of mission. This is an invitation to the Comboni Family to reflect on what it wishes to be and to accomplish for the good of humanity in the construction of the Kingdom of God. The guiding line is always the mission, with these particular characteristics:

The transformation of the system that generates the throwaway culture;
The promotion of the Gospel of care for people, by means of closeness and Samaritan compassion;
Synodality, in involvement and con-participation in all ministries;
Ecological conversion, aware that by protecting the common home, we create dignified life conditions for all, especially the excluded.

This is the reason why the title of the book “We Are Mission”, becomes an appeal for a mission that is lived as communities of regenerated people and Comboni communion between sisters, brothers and laypeople, ever more articulated and interconnected with other groups and associations both ecclesial and lay, as an integral part of the people of God.

This process of change amplifies the Comboni dream of regenerating Africa with Africa in the perspective of the great dream of Pope Francis, expressed in his post-synod Apostolic Exhortation “Querida Amazonia”: a dream of the creation of a new society that includes the “rejected” and a new social pact for the common good. A cultural dream of pluralistic humanity; an ecological dream in which all is interconnected and the commitment to save the earth guarantees a future for all humanity. Finally, it is an ecclesial dream, well symbolised by the image of the “field hospital”, immersed in the life and the reality of the poor and marginalised, that touches the wounds of the brothers and sisters and pours on them the oil of peace and reconciliation.
Fernando Zolli and Daniele Moschetti

The ministerial role of the brother

3 November, 2020 by Alberto de la Portilla

INCARNATION OF THE WORD, BROTHERHOOD
AND HUMAN PROMOTION

Below we present the experience of Brother Joel Cruz Reyes in Ecuador in which we highlight features of the ministry of the Brother from a new perspective of human promotion that has The Word as its foundation.

1. Encounter with the mission

In 1997 I arrived in Ecuador, assigned to the Afro-Ecuadorian Cultural Centre in the city of Guayaquil. At that time, the accompaniment of people of African descent revolved around religiosity and liturgical-sacramental and socio-political formation, with the aim of making them socially and ecclesially visible. For this purpose, the support of lay experts in psychology, anthropology, sociology, politics, etc. was sought.

From the behavior, attitudes and motivations I saw in the Afros who came to the Center, I realized that their dependence on the missionary was chronic. They had become accustomed to considering themselves materially, spiritually and morally destitute. Certainly, this behavior was a reflection of the shadows of their history that reached them in the present, but it was also a consequence of the paternalistic vision that had prevailed in their accompaniment. This did not allow them to grow in humanity and in spirit; it stagnated them in the role of “object,” not allowing them to advance toward the role of the ecclesial and social “subject.

2. Understanding and initiating processes

Little by little, I understood that these processes, although they were very good, were disconnected from faith and from The Word, as if the “regeneration of being Afro” was only a “human-social” problem. I realized that the processes did not reach the contemplation of the Afro-descendant as a child of God, made in the Hisimage and likeness, sculpted by history, adverse social and ecclesial circumstances. But in the end the human is conceived and desired by God with a specific mission in the Church, in society and in the world.

The results were logical because, on the one hand, the pyramidal accompaniment inherited by the predominant pastoral tradition of the Church made them “object-dependent” on the action of the “subject” who was the missionary. On the other hand, the intervention of lay specialists without a religious vision, of faith and disconnected from the Word of God, could not offer more than a way to see the African descendant and his history, as a personal and social “problem”. They did not see themselves as “human beings” but as a “social problem” an “object” of abuse, mistreatment and exclusion. They were convinced that they were only “victims” and not human beings with an ecclesial and social responsibility.

3. Presence that shares life

When I began to accompany with them, I realized that the presence of the Brother who, by his vocational nature, is stripped of the sacred, is gradually “rounding off” the relational pyramid in the cultural, social and ecclesial structures, until the circularity of the ministerial fraternity willed by Jesus is consolidated. I came to understand that the Brother, precisely because he is a religious, is able to contemplate the humanity of the people he accompanies and to set that humanity in motion (human promotion) in the Church and in society.

I understood that the Brother is a bridge between science and faith, between the Gospel and society, between the Church and the world, between religious and secular life, between priestly and lay ministry. Without his presence, processes often become “extreme”: they go to the “liturgical-sacramental extreme” or to the “political-social extreme. The Brother, who has a foot in both extremes, is therefore able to balance the processes of evangelization and to make the human being see his history not as a human tragedy without God, but as a sacred history of salvation, where God is not only present but becomes flesh and assumes the causes of that human being as his own.

4. The miracles of brotherhood

The Lord gave me the opportunity to see the miracles of brotherhood that spring from the awareness of knowing that we are all brothers and sisters, children of the same Father. With the same dignity and missionary responsibility as Christ, and therefore, to understand ourselves as the Black Body of Christ in that discriminatory and exclusive society that also overshadowed the Church in that context. It gave me the opportunity to experience the liberating power of “becoming one among them”, of not being afraid to “lower oneself”, just like Jesus (Philip 2, Emmaus) and to seek together with them the ways, the answers, the solutions…

By being among people of African descent as a “companion on the journey” and not as a guide or teacher, made people begin to taste and savour communion and participation, to understand the value and power of the “cenacle of apostles” dreamt of by St. Daniel Comboni. Our of these, several initiatives were born: the Brotherhood of Afro-Ecuadorian Missionaries, the Afro-Biblical Way, processes of ethno-education and cultural recreation in an urban context, Afro organizations and associations with cultural and socio-political purposes, the Afro youth ministry…

My fraternal journey with the Afros allowed me to contemplate how “the object” was transformed into a social and ecclesial “subject. And it all began when they discovered themselves as human beings, children of God, missionaries of the Father. And this awareness is sown by living with them, discussing with them, as Jesus did with his disciples: on the road, in the houses, at the feast, in their villages… talking, responding to concerns, explaining, unhurried sharing, without fixed places… often far from the temple.

Having experienced the regenerating power of brotherhood in the human being, I thought and imagined the Comboni Missionary Brother as a “midwife” of lay ministries that go beyond the structures of the temple and religious matters. A ministry that touches human and social issues; as a companion of those ministries that are born with a secular projection in order to infuse them with the Spirit and to be the transforming force of God in society.

My journey with the people made me recognize myself as a religious brother, that is, an “expert” in establishing the profound connection between the world and God, between the flesh and the spirit, between the human and the divine. The Brother is an expert at helping human beings to understand God by being a citizen who acts in the society in which he finds himself and sees God in them.

5. Questioning and looking to the future

But how can we ensure that the fraternity that promotes the humanity of the people is strengthened and does not end up being diluted in the evangelizing tradition that looks more to the liturgical-sacramental? How can we make the ministry of the incarnation of the Word in ministries that touch on human and social issues more visible and meaningful in the Institute, the Church and society? These questions found an answer in the proposal made by St. Daniel Comboni to establish Training Centres where the African does not change and the missionary does not die.

This seemed to me to be the most adequate strategy for the numerical and dispersed situation of the Brother in the Institute and, thus, to be able to think of a physical figure that accompanies the ministry of the Brother, identifies him, defines him and makes him more comprehensible. For this reason, just as the priest is accompanied by the figure of the parish, a work that explains and makes his ministry understandable, so I began to imagine a work that could release all the ministerial force of fraternity in the Institute. Thus was born the idea of the Obras Combonianas de Promoción Humana (OCPHs) and the Centro Cultural Afroecuatoriano de Guayaquil became the first of these works.

FOR PERSONAL AND COMMUNITY REFLECTION:

1. What strikes me most about this religious experience? Why?

2. What does this experience touch in me? For what reason?

3. What does it say to us as a community?

4. What part or parts of this experience can illuminate parish work or missionary projects in our communities/missions?

TO DEEPEN

Guidelines of Pope Francis and Benedict XVI on fraternity

Reflections taken from the document “Notes for a missionary spirituality on Fraternity” by Br. Alberto Degan.

In this third millennium the Pope proposes a fascinating mission: to combat the “globalization of indifference” by building the “globalization of fraternity”. Naturally, it is a call for all Christians, but in us Brothers this call undoubtedly arouses a sense of joy and particular responsibility.

– The first two messages for the World Day of Peace of Pope Francis (the messages of 2014 and 2015) are entirely dedicated to the theme of fraternity. “Fraternity is the foundation and the way to peace,” Pope Francis tells us. In fact, peace and justice are not just a ‘technical’ question of making structural changes to diminish the scandalous inequalities that characterize today’s world, nor is it just a political question. Peace and justice are, above all, a spiritual challenge: only if we feel we are brothers and sisters, children of the same Father, will people be ready to make the changes and the ‘sacrifices’ necessary to give life to a just and fraternal society. As Francis said in the Urbi et Orbi message for Christmas 2018, “without the brotherhood that Jesus Christ has given us, our efforts for a more just world would not go very far” (Psalm 84, 11-12).

– Pope Benedict proposed fraternity as an economic principle: “Economic, social and political development needs, if it is to be authentically human, to make room for the principle of gratuity as an expression of fraternity,” he stated in his encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” n. 34. And he added: “The great challenge we have… is to show… that in commercial relations the principle of gratuity and the logic of gift, as expressions of fraternity, can and must have room in ordinary economic activity” (CV 36). Benedict XVI proposes that the logic of fraternity should reconfigure our economic system.

– More recently, Pope Francis dedicated the entire message for the 2014 World Day of Peace to the theme of fraternity: “Fraternity, foundation and path to peace. The titles of the various parts of this document are: “You are all brothers, (Mt 23,8)”, “Fraternity, a premise for overcoming poverty”, “The rediscovery of fraternity in the economy”, “Fraternity extinguishes war”, “Fraternity generates social peace”, “Fraternity helps to protect and cultivate nature”. Only by taking a quick look at these titles do we come to understand that, for Pope Francis, fraternity – far from being a random and ‘romantic’ concept – is a very concrete principle of faith with inescapable social, political and economic implications. According to the Pope, social justice cannot be built if we do not first cultivate in our hearts a deep sense of fraternity.

– The first part of this Document is entitled “Where is your brother? (Gen 4:9). In the Bible, this is the second question that God addresses to man, and that means that for God it is a fundamental question. Human beings, just as they were conceived by our Creator, realize their humanity when they come out of their selfishness and concern themselves with the living conditions of their brothers and sisters, when they enter into a logic of communion and brotherhood that makes them perceive that their life has meaning only if it is lived in an attitude of solidarity with their fellow human beings. In other words, for God, to be human means to be and to see ourselves as brothers and sisters.

– Jesus presents himself to us as the “first-born among many brothers” (Rom 8:29): fraternity is the path mapped out by God for the realization of our humanity. As an African proverb says, “I am a human being because you are a human being,” in other words: ‘I feel good and can realize my humanity when I see that my brothers are also good and can realize it. But in our society the opposite logic prevails, that of the old Latin adage “Mors tua vita mea”, which means: “Your death is my life”, “Only if I kill you and take possession of your goods can I live happily”.

So it is not surprising that Helmut Maucher – president of the multinational Nestlé in the 1980s and 1990s – even said that he needed executives with a “killer instinct”. In this way, as the economist Hinkelammert states, “the fight to kill the other is seen as a source of prosperity and life”. Thus, the evangeliser proposes the model and spirituality of the brother-man against the model and ‘spirituality’ of the killer-man.

A “spiritual revolution” is needed to fight injustice and poverty, a spirituality of brotherhood that makes us understand that the defeat and death of my brother will also be, sooner or later, my defeat and death. As Martin Luther King said, “Either we will succeed in living as brothers or we will die.

– In Evangelii Gaudium (n.186) Francis states that our love for “the most abandoned of society” derives “from our faith in Christ who is always close to the poor”. Undoubtedly, in the face of so many enormous challenges, we often feel small and powerless: we have no immediate answers for WHAT TO DO. But Jesus gives us a very clear indication of WHERE TO BE: today, as yesterday, Jesus “is always close to the poor” calls us to be NEAR THE POOR, NEAR THE LAST.

Our General Chapter of 2015 accepted this invitation of the Pope, and for this reason itindicated as the first criterion for re-qualifying our commitments the criterion of “closeness to the poor” (CA15 n.44.5). This is a criterion that for us Comboni Brothers has a special value, because our Founder saw us as those who are closest to the people, because we spend more time with them: “In Central Africa, the well-prepared artisan brothers contribute to our apostolate more than the priests do to conversion, because the black students and the neophytes (the majority of whom are in the process of being converted) are the most important ones. … have to stay a fairly long time with the ‘masters’ and ‘experts’, who by word and example are true apostles for their students) are with the brothers, and they observe and listen to them more than they can observe and listen to the priests” (W5831).

Note: See also the last encyclical of Pope Francis “Fratelli Tutti” on fraternity and social friendship (October 3, 2020).

PERSONAL PRAYER

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory (the glory that corresponds to the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” Jn 1,14

Reflections from the continental meetings of Brothers in America:

– The ministerial figure of the Comboni Missionary Brother is inserted in the midst of an ecclesial mentality and tradition that imprisons the Word of God in temples; in theoretical discourses that hardly dare to go beyond ecclesial structures that touch human and social issues,

– His vocation is to “make the Word flesh” in the context where he lives and also to shape the human being as a child of God and brother of all. This leads him to open up paths and initiatives that are not limited to the structures and traditions of the Church, because the “missionary incarnation of the Word” is lived in harmony with the times and the places where it is found.

– The fraternal spirit of God leads him to the insertion in the daily life of the people, therefore he is able to discover and rescue the richness and experience of individuals and human groups that he accompanies in mission. He aims at enriching the Church and society and promoting the truly human aspect of the people as a work and revelation of God that must be known, recognized, valued, assumed and proposed by the Church to the world.

– Living fraternally together with the people (consciously and with a missionary spirit) makes him a “radar” that captures the signs, the signals, the noises, the challenges… that the human and social reality poses today and here. For this reason, his word and contribution is decisive in the dynamism, creativity and updating of the Comboni mission.

– His evangelical-social and fraternal face makes him a “bridge” between society and the Church, between the secular and the religious, between the laity and the clergy. It is precisely for this reason that it becomes the social face of the missionary commitment of the Church. This vocational dimension inserts him into the core of human sensitivity that seeks solidarity, justice, peace, and a commitment to transforming society. Its vocation makes it a presence that strengthens the conscience and spirit of the human being to live the Kingdom as justice, peace, joy (Rm 14, 17ff)

– The role of the Brother as a consecrated person and minister of Christ, then, is the edification and human and Christian growth of persons and communities, from the perspective of the Gospel, and therefore his action does not exclude the ministry of the Word. His evangelizing presence among the people emphasizes the dimension of brotherhood in all its aspects: integral development of persons, promotion of justice, peace, human rights… that is, his ministry directly touches social, anthropological, and cultural questions from the perspective of the Kingdom of God.

SHARING IN COMMUNITY AND LINES OF ACTION

In an atmosphere of prayer and mutual listening, let us share in community the fruits of personal prayer.
Let us reflect together:
1. What do you think about what we have shared and prayed about the ministry of the Brother?
1. What do you feel the Spirit is inviting us to do, personally, as a community, as a province, and as an Institute?
1. How can we respond in a concrete way to the invitations of the Spirit?
1. Our commitment is:

“The ministry of the Brothers, disciples of the fraternal Christ, pays attention to the dimension of fraternity in all its aspects, including the integral development of persons, the promotion of justice, peace and human rights. It is, therefore, a ministry open predominantly to the social, anthropological and cultural dimension of the Kingdom of God, oriented to social transformation, to the witness and proclamation of brotherhood and to the animation of the Christian community”.

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST

At the moment of the OUR FATHER, keep a prolonged moment of silence to think of the fraternity that is born of God.

Campaign on the harmful effects of mining activity on health and the environment

30 October, 2020 by Alberto de la Portilla

Today, October 29, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), together with Justiça nos Trilhos (Justice on the Rails), launched a campaign to alert the world’s citizens who unconsciously consume the products of mining and steel companies that for more than three decades have been deteriorating the health and polluting the environment of the community of Piquiá de Baixo, in the Brazilian Amazon.

The campaign marks the 30th anniversary of Grupo Ferroeste in the municipality of Açailândia and invites everyone to support the struggle for the rights of this community, to which the companies and the State have closed their eyes for so long.

To know more: https://bit.ly/3kFKur8

Central Africa Republic – Help for “DA TI NDOYE” Medical Center

14 October, 2020 by Alberto de la Portilla

Central Africa Republic – Help for “DA TI NDOYE” Medical Center

Comboni Lay Missionaries, serving on the mission in Mongoumba, are young people who want to dedicate part of their lives to work among the poorest and most abandoned of this world. However, it is not always as easy as it sounds. We create an international community here and participate in the life of the parish in collaboration with the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus (MCCJ).

Our mission in Mongoumba in the Central African Republic is situated right on the border with Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our service is primarily to integrate people living in the depths of the forest – Pygmies with the people of the village. We go to small villages situated in the forest to provide at least basic medical help to these people, together with our local health center employee, we conduct short lectures on diseases occurring here, personal hygiene, we introduce simple catecheses that can be applied to their lives, as well as we give moments of carefree childhood to the youngest through games and fun.

Pygmies are a tribe that the local people of the village consider cheap or free labor, they are pushed to the margins of society, but unfortunately that’s the reality here. Integration is the most important task for us, but it is hard to talk about integration, when it often happens that Pygmies are not willingly admitted to the hospital to dress wounds, test for malaria, or even show the slightest interest in their health. They are sent home or to our mission.

On our mission, we have a small health center that is not in the best condition and a rehabilitation center called “Da ti Ndoye”, which means “House of Love”.

The project aims to modernize this rehabilitation center that has existed since 1985. We would like to combine it with our health center to create one complex offering many possibilities. It is one of the few rehabilitation centers to which patients come from the entire area of the M`Baiki diocese. In addition to restoring the physical building, we would also like to renew our missionary animation through physical work for the benefit of the local people by giving the most precious gift – health.

Depending on the financial possibilities, we would like to:

replace the water sewage system; clean and disinfect the water tank or replace it with a new one; clean the well; purchase a generator for pumping water, replace water supply pipes;
install solar panels and batteries
purchase a power generator
renovate the kitchen (replacing worktops, installing tiles)
renovate the toilets (cleaning the walls, installing tiles, replacing doors, purchasing equipment)
make a ramp for wheelchairs and install railings on the porch
replace the ceiling throughout the building, clean and renew the walls
equip the offices with the necessary equipment
purchase the most necessary drugs

BUDGET

Drugs and dressing materials: EUR 4,000

Equipment for physiotherapy: EUR 2,000

Construction materials: EUR 12,000

Equipment for health center: EUR 5,000

Solar panels and batteries: EUR 5,000

Water pump and generator: EUR 4,000

Employees: EUR 3,000

Transport of materials: EUR 1,000

Sewage: EUR 2,000

TOTAL 39,000 EURO

If we manage to receive an extra money, we will use it for medicines and the health care and development programs for the pygmies’ population.

Donations can be done to MCCJ account in your country with annotation: Medical Aid Center “DA TI NDOYE” in CAR. CLM Mongoumba.

CLM in Central Africa Republic

Rural Family House of Açailândia: a history of struggles

22 September, 2020 by Alberto de la Portilla

By Zé Luís Costa. From the MST website. (Edited by Fernanda Alcântara)

The Rural Family House [Casa Familiar Rural (CFR)] of Açailândia, in the state of Maranhão, was constituted as an association in 2001 after a small group of social activists met and began to discuss ways to improve the issue of rural education for the local reality.

From the beginning, the entities that started the proposal of the family house entered the debate of this political and social project, such as the MST, which had just settled in the city, the institute of the Comboni Missionaries, the Center for the Defense of Life and Human Rights and the Union of Workers and Rural Workers of the city.

The experience of this type of school is already old in the world and in the state of Maranhão they are present in several different cities. In other parts of the world this type of school is known as “Family Agricultural School”.

From the first discussions, the interested organizations held several meetings, even in cities on the outskirts, as Xoan Carlos (CLM) reminds us. “We held a series of meetings in the communities. There were another 60 meetings in the municipalities of Açailândia, São Francisco do Brejão, Itinga, Bom Jesus das Selvas. And finally the association was formed”.

He continues: “From there we obtained a piece of land, given by the Catholic Church. But we could not afford to build the building or pay the employees. So it was a few more years of struggle and articulation in the search for projects, and where we got some international support”.

Later, in 2003, the organizations involved in the idea managed to start what they dreamed of for the city and its surroundings, in view of the large number of settlements and rural communities they had in the vicinity of the city, now with 110,000 inhabitants. It was a dream for the distant future.

The pioneers of the idea achieved, with much struggle, agreements with the city council, as Xoan Carlos states. “In 2005 we started the first activities of the CFR. We started with an elementary school course, we had managed to structure several productive units in agriculture, beekeeping, cattle raising, pigs… Governor Jackson Lago had the intention of doing a high school course integrated to professional education, and a new moment started for the CFR”, he concludes.

With these articulations, in 2006 the high school course started, which was better adapted to the needs of the youth in the countryside. Mainly because, in 2001, many communities only had young people with the fourth grade at most. This was the need they have: a school with different characteristics from the conventional ones, for the countryside.

Jarbe Firmino was a student in the first class of the Açailândia Rural Family House, and later entered the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA). He graduated in Education in countryside and returned to CFR, now as a monitor/teacher, and then took a position in the institution as general coordinator.

He tells about his experience criticizing the position of the public power: “This experience, to which I refer, of coordinator, as well as in other moments, was of great difficulty in terms of support from the public power. These were periods in which contracts were not honored by the State, which weakened the movement of which the CFR is a part,” he concludes.

After all this struggle, came the recognition and the conquests. The main one was the training of young people as agricultural technicians to work in the settlements with their families and in some state agencies. The Regional Council of Engineering and Agronomy, CREA, recognized them so that they could work officially providing technical assistance to the projects.

However, the desire of the coordination and the group that organizes the association and the CFR is that the students, trained, work with their families developing what they have learned, in family farms, as most of the settlements of the agrarian reform.

The CFR is managed by an association, and the president is currently Xoan Carlos. The coordination is chosen by the association and has ten teachers who are hired by the Maranhão State Education Secretariat.

History of the rural family houses

The Rural Family Houses originated in France in 1935, in a situation of strong rural exodus, when a group of families, with the support of the Catholic Church, met to rethink this situation. They called it “House” to differentiate it from the conventional school and because it began in the home of a family; “Family” because it was an organization of families and not of the government; and “Rural” because the object of the experience was in the rural environment as a whole: technical, human, cultural, etc.

Today, in France, there are 450 CFRs. Since the 1960s, the experience has spread to Spain and Italy under the name “Family Farm School”. There are about 1,000 CFRs in the five continents, in thirty countries.

In Brazil, the CFRs began to appear at the end of the 1960s, and today there are about 150 rural educational centers that operate with the “Pedagogy of Alternance”. In Maranhão there are approximately 27 schools with these formative principles. The pedagogy of alternation developed within the methods of Paulo Freire, in a construction of technical training, is united with training for life, in the case of Açailândia, expanded with the commitment to the struggles for a differentiated model of agriculture.

INCARNATION OF THE WORD, BROTHERHOODAND HUMAN PROMOTION

INCARNATION OF THE WORD, BROTHERHOOD
AND HUMAN PROMOTION