Laura Miño Pérez: A Marist Volunteer in the Fratelli Project

Laura Alejandra Miño Pérez is a Bolivian Lay Marist from the Province of Santa Maria de Los Andes. She was a volunteer in the Fratelli Project in Lebanon from October 2018 to December 2019. Her participation in the project was carried out through the mediation of the CMI Department of the General Administration. The Fratelli Project was created in 2016 by the Congregations of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Marist Brothers in response to the emerging urgent needs of the most vulnerable and at-risk children and young people. Here is Laura’s testimony:

What has been most moving for me in recent years is the feeling of communion that takes place between us and the people we come to serve, even though we have never met before. I experienced it in my own life at the age of four at home in Bolivia, when we had to move from one region to another due to health problems. I experienced it through my parents, who left their home in Ecuador to become missionaries in Bolivia almost thirty years ago. I experienced it while working with the Guaraní communities in Bolivia with the Marist Sembrar Foundation. I lived it in Brazil, which was my first experience of international volunteering. I lived it in Ghana, in Thailand, in China, where I encountered cultures that were new to me (another language, new ways of eating, of relating), and in community life during my three years with the LaValla200 Program. I often felt like a foreigner, a migrant and a refugee. Perhaps so often that the fear of the unknown became a companion and then a friend: I came to admire and welcome the unknown.

The Fratelli Project seeks to provide a space where those considered “the others” can dream, meet, play, cry, learn…can just be. It is a socio-educational space, which stimulates interaction, learning values, and allows those who are or have been part of the project to dream. During the fourteen months of my life in Fratelli I faced many challenges and I learned from them. As a volunteer, I helped with transportation, played with the children during recreation, assisted the women in the sewing course, took care of the babies and children during breaks; I assisted in the art workshops, made bracelets, mandalas, taught dancing. I also collaborated at the community level, as part of a diverse community that seeks to make real the dream of brotherhood. If there were no borders or flags; if there were no rich and poor; if there were no differences in how men and women, Christians and Muslims are treated, then perhaps the world would be a better place. But what there is, is people dreaming and building that better world; sharing God’s love in concrete works of service and dedication. It’s true that we are all just passing through. But we are also all here now, with the opportunity to be better humans, better sisters and brothers, to go out of ourselves, to welcome others, and to ask ourselves, What will I leave behind after my passage through life?

Have you ever thought—as a Brother, layperson, young person, student, or former student—about becoming a Marist Volunteer? If so, contact the Department of International Mission Collaboration (CMI) at [email protected]