{"id":342718,"date":"2014-01-25T04:15:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-25T03:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/central-african-republic-one-teacher-goes-against-the-tide\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:11:35","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:11:35","slug":"central-african-republic-one-teacher-goes-against-the-tide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/central-african-republic-one-teacher-goes-against-the-tide\/","title":{"rendered":"Central African Republic: One Teacher Goes Against the Tide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elaine from the <\/strong>Central African Republic writes<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a teacher in a Catholic primary school. Ever since I became acquainted with the spirituality of unity I\u2019ve felt it my duty to put the Gospel into practice<\/a> even when it means going against the tide, against the common or popular ways of doing things. \"\"When our country was threatened by guerrilla warfare<\/strong>, I presented the Time Out for Peace<\/a> to my students. This is a moment of prayer during which people around the world pause to ask for the gift of peace in war torn areas and in the hearts of all people. So now we pause each day and pray for peace.\u201d The school children commonly purchase chalk from their teachers,<\/strong> which they then use for writing on wooden boards. Eliane gives the chalk to her students freely, while another teacher charges them 25 francs, which she uses to buy her lunch each day. Noticing Eliane\u2019s approach, this colleague asked her the reason for her generosity: \u201cI tried to make her understand that it wasn\u2019t correct to force the children to pay for chalk, because children deserve justice, and also because Jesus says: \u201cInsofar as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me\u201d (Mt 25:40). \"\"The studies prefect learned<\/strong> of Elaine\u2019s lifestyle and asked her about it. \u201cA short time later\u201d Elaine recounts, \u201che and his wife asked me to be godmother of their youngest daughter. I joyfully accepted and now I feel truly part of their family.\u201d Elaine\u2019s colleagues<\/strong> later proposed her as a candidate for personnel representative under the supervision of the Labour Inspector. She now carries out this role of both mediation and supervision of the smooth running of the school and respecting of rights and duties. The women involved in this group also decided to pray the Time Out. Elaine concludes: \u201cNow, many voices are raised in asking for peace not only in Central Africa, but in the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even in difficult circumstance there can be a culture of peace and respect for the rights of the least, by practicing the words of the Gospel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}