Focolare Movement

Education through the network to change the world

Apr 30, 2016

Relationships, communities, arts and sports were the themes focused on in the International Seminar of EdU (Education in Unity), held in Madrid on 23 and 24 April, for a more inclusive educational programme.

EdU_PartecipantiEdU (Education in Unity), an international and interdisciplinary pedagogic and educational study group got together in Spain (Luminosa Mariapolis Centre) for a seminar on inclusion, the central theme. The Educators from Brazil, Croatia, Italy, Kenya, Burundi, Slovenia, Korea, Poland, Portugal, and certainly Spain, worked on three great threads: relationships, communities, arts and sports. Thanks to live streaming on the network, the Seminar was followed by people in many parts of the world, like Benin, with talks from Argentina, Mexico and the USA. The interesting and stimulating discourses gave a framework to the experiences in  really varied fields: the “love dice” put into practice in Burundi, the relationships established in the Raggio di Sole School (Croatia), and the Sevilla Autism Association (Spain)… or the effects of education in the community, and the education community.  In Argentina, for example, we have the school for the aborigine community. The outcome: it is the school that revives the traditions of these century-old cultures that risk oblivion, through laboratories for goldsmiths, and the manufacture of canvases and musical instruments. EdU_KoreaThe variety of experiences presented was one of the strengths of a seminar conceived as a workshop: “here I see many people working together for the same objectives,” said  one of the participants who no longer felt alone in her battles. In fact, a broader network was created, which knit the participants closer, in the certainty that “the real job has just begun. It was also an occasion to get to know more about other international projects like Living Peace, Scholas Occurrentes and Sportmeet. As a contribution from the world of the art of education, the photographer and educator, Concha Casajús, exhibited some of her works in a video denouncing the sexual abuses perpetrated in Congo. At the end, the participants left with a greater conviction that inclusion is a lifestyle, a necessity in this complex and varied world of today, and particularly, that inclusive education is a priority in all sectors. The Seminar was preceded by a Symposium held in the Complutense University of Madrid on 22 April. Also dedicated to inclusion education, the opening speech was given by the Rector of the National University of Distance Education, Alejandro Tiana. Kishore Singh, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on the Right to Education, contributed with a message of support to the event. The next EdU event is set for 3 and 4 June in Poland, during the International Interdisciplinary Conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the h.c. “Jonh Paul II doctorate in Social Sciences” awarded to Chiara Lubich by the University of Lublin.

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