Fe y Alegría directives and delegates visit the Society’s social projects in Spain
Fe y Alegría is a global movement that serves and transforms people, realities, and structures at a local level by working closely with communities. Evidence of this movement’s work was provided to the directors and delegates of the 22 Fe y Alegría organisations who visited the Society of Jesus social projects in Madrid. This morning, Luis Arancibia, Delegate from the Company of Jesus social sector in Spain, welcomed the delegates at the Casa San Ignacio, a centre for collaboration, participation and social commitment that the Company of Jesus runs in Madrid’s La Ventilla neighbourhood.
Centre director Seve Lazaro opened by presenting the Casa de San Ignacio; the participants were then divided into three groups that visited the following institutions:
- Centro de Formación Padre Piquer: This training centre opened 50 years ago to respond to the social and economic disadvantages of families in Madrid’s La Ventilla neighbourhood. A group of teachers in the 1990s pushed for the need to transform an education method that no longer addressed the plurality experienced in the classroom. The centre responded by launching a two-year process of radical transformation that led to its own innovation project: Multitasking Cooperative Classrooms. Inclusiveness was the cornerstone of this model, which the centre has implemented to achieve an outstanding level of educational quality that connects it to Fe y Alegría’s core values, tapping into diversity as a source of enrichment for the entire school community, turning the students into the true leaders of their learning, and making the learning process fun. To date, 1,100 students from over 35 different nationalities attend the centre’s secondary school and vocational training classes every day.
- Fundación Amoverse: This foundation can be traced back to the work with minors in difficult social situations that people involved with the Society of Jesus had developed 1995. The foundation took its first steps to expand its socio-educational (Amoverse Minors, for young people) and socio-labour (Amoverse Inserción, for job placement) projects in the Ventilla-Almenara neighbourhood in 2003. “Amoverse empresa de inserción S.L.U“, a job placement company, was created that same year after the foundation identified a genuine need to promote the job placement of young people who participate in our training programmes.
- Fundación San Juan del Castillo Pueblos Unidos: An organisation that strives to build a more welcoming, integrated, plural, and cohesive society: a society more in keeping with the justice that flows from the Christian faith. They assist, serve, and defend people, families, and migrant groups, both through direct assistance programmes for comprehensive promotion and through public awareness and advocacy work.
The directors were able to get a first-hand look at how Fe y Alegría and the organisations visited respond to the same core essence: direct assistance to those people who need it most, providing an inclusive and quality education on the frontiers.