The request for education

96. The impoverishment of the planet, determined by complex causes and in particular by economic models founded on the neo-liberal vision, is a situation that sees the poor ever more at risk, ever more nomadic, urged on by desperation to undertake the path of human mobility.  Reference to this reality comes out frequently in the province syntheses.  

The impoverishment is also present in the communities that live it as a limitation and as a provocation to a more austere and essential existence.

It reawakens in the educating communities that «dream of charity» (NMI 51) that our Founders lived as an appeal to respond to the educational needs of the young people, training them to be «good Christians and honest citizens».

The request for education is inserted into this context and calls us to answer as educators of the young people.  These experience various types of poverty.

New requests for values

97. Poor in values: The law of consumerism and of pleasure, the ethics of individualism, are some of the categories that impoverish the sense of life in its deep aspirations to transcendence, justice, solidarity and peace.  Some applications of the progress in medicine and biotechnology-contraceptive means, genetic selection-guide couples and the woman in particular to accept a reductive vision of love and the family, that has evident negative consequences on the children and on society.

In the face of this state of events, there arises the demand for a new evangelization to reach young people with the proclamation of Jesus Christ, witnessed to and expressed in language that is understandable to them.

Humanly qualifying relationships

98.  Poor in relationships: in this clearly defined era of communications, people suffer from solitude and abandonment.  Children and young people are frequently members of broken families, experiencing what it means to be without one father or without mother.  This situation, present on every continent, is a burden on the life of all, but especially on those of young people and of women.

Wars, natural disasters and AIDS generate millions of orphans who are deprived of family affection and of the hope for a future.  The migratory phenomena and that of the refugees, determined by economic or political factors, deprives people of their own roots and cuts off the most vital relationships with their country and people.  In the more developed societies, the accelerated rhythm of daily existence reduces the possibilities and/or quality of encounter thus impoverishing interpersonal relationships.  The very life of the religious community runs the risk of entering into this bureaucratic machinery that promotes the growth of individualism and the sadness of an existence deprived of human warmth and one that is poor in possibilities.

For  solidarity

99.  Poor in material goods: Globalization is paid for at a high price, especially by the poor.  Instead of a greater opportunity for all, it generates the unequal distribution of goods, the exclusion of the weak, the impossibiity of a sustainable human development.  We assist at a type of new colonialism, one that produces unemployment and emigration and generates a greater indebtedness among countries already in debt, already excluded from the global market.  This situation is at the origin of other types of poverty.

The challenge of guaranteeing vital goods such as land, water, food, home and work strongly ask education to propose an alternative vision to that which dominates today.  We are aware of the urgency to organize in solidarity, to collaborate in creating structures that do not satisfy only immediate needs, but rather guarantee continuity generating processes of growth in every culture.

For information

100.  Poor in information: In the media age, the basis of economic, political and cultural power rests on information. The wealth of a State is measured prevalently by its communication domination.

The planetary market of communications is governed by the logic of capitalism, of power in the hands of a few. This situation makes its negative effects felt in all of existence because it generates endorsement and the consequent impoverishment of the cultures.  In fact, the world-wide flow of news and radio and television programs are monopolized by a small number of communications agencies.

The awareness of this situation, rather preoccupying for education, has not been sufficiently brought out by the provinces, which, perhaps, do not feel equal to the task. In the face of an incorporated phenomenon and one in rapid evolution, or, living in places where information is scarce and controlled, they do not succeed in finding ways for an alternative communication.

The challenge, once again, regards the development and assumption of educational models which, in the sweeping flow of continual communication, train to the critical reading of information and to the interpretation of those silences that regard poor nations.

We are dealing with educating to an active citizenship that prepares people to be present in a critical way and eventually, with alternative information, in the service of truth, so as to give voice and hope to the future of the poor.

For culture and education

101.  Poor in culture and in education. Educational institutions, in particular the school, run the risk of reproducing the logic of an unjust and oppressive system, of limiting themselves to a transmission of content responding to the dominant culture, to assuring technicians and manpower for the market.  We are aware that the key to development is education, invoked by all as an important way out to break the vicious circle of misery and exploitation.  Many, however, have no possibility of access to school, or they utilize a service that is poor in quality or dependent on the ideology of power, and above all, lacking in those values on which to anchor their lives.

The challenge to us is that of qualifying the educational-scholastic service and joining formal-informal education in a better manner, guaranteeing content and values that form the person in a critically healthy and propositive way and not only as a market resource.  

For this reason we ask for a continual evaluation of the vision of the person and of social life according to the evangellical view, so as not to be merely producers of services, but educators in condition to put forth proposals and experiences that improve the quality of  our response  in regard to  the categories of the weakest.

For attention to the poverty of women

102.  Feminine poverty: The feminization of poverty still remains and increases today because among the poor, the woman is the most penalized, has fewer guarantees in work, is more exposed to exploitation of every type, is less recognized even when she is culturally prepared.  There are still many prejudices weighing on her that frequently render a social insertion not endorsed by males an arduous task.  In her, finally, are summed up many of the forms of poverty described until this point .  Even emigration, illiteracy, the phenomenon of being a refugee are assuming an ever more feminine face.  From here there derives the appeal to care for women, beginning from children.  This implies solicitude in favoring their integral development through the specific areas of health, literacy, professional formation, education to social conscience and vocational maturity.  In this way we will train young women to be active citizens capable of denouncing the abuses against their dignity and capable of offering an effective and critical contribution to their community.