Province of Central South Brazil
A life dedicated to young people and to the Marist Mission. This was the path of Brother Henri Vergès, one of the “19 martyrs of Algeria” beatified on December 8, 2018 in the Basilica of the Holy Cross, in Oren, Algeria. The Brother remained 25 years in the African country, carrying out work and dedicating himself to education and to the spreading and diffusion of the fraternal and tolerant word of Christ and Mary.
The great admiration caused by Henri Vergès because of his immense dedication and faith, has inspired and given name to a new educational work of the Province Central-South Brazil: the Marist Social School Br. Henri.
The educational Center found in the neighborhood Gtalha Azul, is one of the regions with the greatest social vulnerability of the city of Fazenda, Rio Grande (Metropolitan Region of Curitiba, State of Paraná). The establishment, which will be administered by the Executive Directory of Social Action of the Province (Marist Group), was possible through a public-private Association, with the Municipal District Council, which constructed the building.
Beginning on February 4, the beginning of the classes, 550 children of Early Childhood Education and Primary School will be taken care of. For the year 2020, the goal is to increase the attention to 900 children.
"Brother Henri Vergès worked very actively in initial education and made great sacrifices in order to be able to carry out his mission in a country of Muslim majority. Nothing stopped him from continuing his mission as missionary and educator in an unstable territory and full of adversity. The new Social School is born from the ideal of being a significant and different presence in an extremely vulnerable environment, in need, impoverished and adverse. It is an honor to bear the name of Blessed Br. Henri, and we profoundly desire to drink from his witness and Charism, immortalized in his phrase: “More true is a word that I live than one that I say”, says the executive Directress of Social Action, Alessandra Hovorusko.