Workshop on Learning plus Service

Thanks to the alliance between the Marist Provinces, Gladis Araceli Avelar of El Salvador and myself from Guatemala, members of the Commission of Solidarity for the Province of América Central were able to accept the invitation of the Province of México Central to take part in the original Workshop for Learning and Service (A+S) which took place in the Provincial House of Tlalpan (México City), and was divided between Mr. Esteban Andrés Ore Saldívar, Coordinator of Learning and Service for the Marist sector of Chile in cooperation with the organization of the Provincial Coordination of Education under Mr. Alfonso Ruiz de Chávez and the Provincial Coordinator of Solidarity led by Miss Socorro Álvarez. 

From the 14 until 16 February the participants taking place in the workshop were: from the Province of América Central (2), Province of Canada (2), and 30 people approximately taking part from the different educational works of the Marist Province of Central México.

Since this formation responds to the third Call of the XII Chapter General – " To be agents of change, builders of bridges, committed messengers of peace in the transformation of the life of young people through the evangelizing education " -, the objective of the workshop was to be aware of the foundation of the educational proposal of the Learning Service, as methodological tools to promote education for solidarity based on the academic curriculum. It also explained for us the methodology of A+S that looks to maximise for the students, solidary premeditation and pedagogic premeditation; and with it to look ahead for the significant learning for the students, informing them of the surrounding realities and creating a bond with the society, and this way to contribute with the development of the community, through the realization of projects of the students that are part of their academic activities. 

As a general thematic, it approached the context and the dimensions of the  Marist mission; as well as specific topics: the Models of solidarity, the importance of the protagonist participation of the students, the Learning Service (elements, learning quadrants, methodological structures, impacts and institutionalization of methodology). 

In the case of the present participants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Canada we were invited to visit, from the 18 to the 21 February, four Marist educational works (Colegio México Bachillerato; Instituto México Toluca; Colegio Pedro Martínez Vásquez; and el Instituto Marista Morelos). 

In sharing our set up in Mexico we had the opportunity to get to know the programme Educación Marista for el Buen Vivir which seeks to create and "looks to create processes of ecological understanding, environmental education and permacultural design that allow for the outline of the pedagogic itineraries of the Marist schools, as well as the personal transformation and of our educational communities toward more simple, more and better new lifestyleslinked with the environment and as a less consumist society … ". 

Within the dynamics of the educational works it is important to point  out the interrelated topics: Care of the Common House – Good living – Permaculture – Learning Service and Planning the Sociocognitive-humanist Model. 

To conclude, I am very grateful to our Marist friends of the Province of Central Mexico (Solidarity, Education, Vocation), for their welcome, their attention, the everyday care and sharing. I wish to  thank the Province of Central America for its trust and the opportunity of the formation. 

María Victoria Racancoj Mejía 

Marist Foundation – Commission of Solidarity