Global – Literacy with Fe y Alegría
There is only one assumption: learning to read and write is never too late.
Learning to read and write is the first step towards accessing other citizenship rights. It is not that people have no rights if they do not read or write, but the opportunities for community and social relations are enhanced if the logic of grammar is understood. In Fe y Alegría, there is a method: the pedagogy of popular education.
Illiteracy in context
There are 763 million illiterate people in the world. The health emergency caused by COVID-19 aggravated the situation. The United Nations estimates that 7 out of 10 children and adolescents in low- and middle-income countries cannot understand a text. Since 2019, this figure has increased by 20%.
UNESCO sees this International Literacy Day as an essential opportunity to promote SDG4—ensure the right to inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. And to promote peaceful, inclusive, just and sustainable societies.
Literacy with Fe y Alegría
In Latin America, the context of poverty and inequality in the middle of the previous century opened doors for various literacy proposals from civil society and the Church to reach out to the grassroots, peasant, and indigenous sectors.
In Venezuela, for example, the Instituto Radiofónico Fe y Alegríaadapted the methodology of Spain's Radio ECA to offer an alternative literacy programme to young people and adults in local neighbourhoods and rural areas.
The Maestro en Casa methodology, promoted by Radio ECA, is also applied in other South American countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay.
Challenges in Africa
The literacy experience from "lo popular" or the grassroots crossed over the continent to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad. Supported by the [Radio] ECA approach, Fe y Alegría's radio education seeks to reduce inequality gaps through intercultural and bilingual pedagogy.
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The General Assembly is the highest governing body of the Federation of Fe y Alegria Movement. It comprises 22 member countries, the General Coordination, and the Presidents of the Conferences of Jesuit Provincials of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. To enrich the Movement's sustainability, the General Assembly provided input and recommendations to the executive team.
As part of the Federative Leadership Training Plan, the "Advocacy and Defense of the Right to Education from Fe y Alegría" seminar took place.
Intending to strengthen the processes of quality and educational innovation in a coordinated and networked way and to deepen educational innovation from the principles of popular education.
On 18 October 2023, Fe y Alegría in Ecuador held the opening event to mark 60 years of service to education. More than 700 people from different parts of the country gathered to commemorate the important date.
In this newsletter we hear from our partners in Africa and Asia about the ways in which people they work with are denied the most basic right of education and why they have made education a priority for their work.
Since August 2022, collaborators of the Association Fe y Alegría Paraguay have been participating in Ignatian Spirituality formation workshops.
