One more step towards the new Fratelli Project in Maicao
The team in charge of the development of the Fratelli Project of the De La Salle Brothers and the Institute of the Marist Brothers continues to work on the implementation of the Fratelli Project in Maicao, Colombia. An inter-congregational group, from November 15th to 19th, was on site, and in contact with the Marists and Lasallians, followed the contacts and planning, in order to begin this new project, which it is hoped will become a reality in the course of 2022. The team visited twelve settlements in the municipality, inhabited mostly by migrant families, where a situation of extreme poverty and inequality in terms of access to fundamental rights such as health, food, education, among others, was evident.
As well as continuing the process of observing the situation in Maicao, this visit also helped to strengthen relations and mutual understanding between the De La Salle Brothers and the Marists. Likewise, the basic agreements for the opening of the Fratelli Maicao project were advanced and contact was made with other representatives of the Catholic Church in the region.
After this five-day tour and in order to open up the ‘Fratelli Maicao’ project, the reference team will continue to bring its proposals and recommendations to the Fratelli Council. The Fratelli Council will analyse and give the necessary orientations for the beginning of the Fratelli Maicao Community, which is projected to begin in 2022.
Fratelli Project
The Fratelli Project was created in 2016, by the Congregations of the De La Salle Brothers and the Marist Brothers, with the aim of showing a new fraternity, to create new communal areas and to put them at the service of migrant and displaced children (Read the letter of the Superiors General).
In 2012, the first branch was set up in Lebanon, where it serves mainly Syrian and Iraqi children displaced by the wars in the Middle East. The permanent Fratelli community is made up of Lasallian and Marist Brothers, lay people and lay volunteers living in the centre of Rmeileh.
The opening of the Fratelli Project in Maicao, Colombia, was announced on 4 March 2020, by the Superiors General of the Marist Brothers, Brother Ernesto Sanchez Barba, and of the De La Salle Brothers, Brother Robert Schieler, in the letter sent to the Provincials and Visitors officially communicating the decision.
This new action affirms the cooperation between the two congregations and continues the initiative of 2015, which made possible the creation of the Fratelli Project in Lebanon.