After the III Biannual Meeting of the Integral Ecology and Pan Amazon Network of Fe y Alegría, a "Declaration of Commitments" was issued reaffirming the educational work in the Amazon.

Fe y Alegría International Federation, Integral Ecology and Pan-Amazon Network: Declaration of Commitments

The International Federation Fe y Alegría, through its initiative Integral Ecology and Pan Amazon Network, which brings together the educational and social experiences of Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, we have met virtually on July 14, 15 and 16, in the framework of the III Biannual Meeting entitled "Building solidarity, hope from the Pan Amazon".

We seek to strengthen our educational presence and transforming social action in the territories of the Amazon and fruit of the reflection on the path traveled by the Pan Amazon Network in the light of the challenges of reality and the promotion of Integral Ecology in the context of pandemic, as well as the deepening of the Intercultural Bilingual educational axes, Care and Defense of nature and projection of our identity of Pan Amazon Network in articulation with sectors of civil society, churches and peoples of the Amazon from the approach of Integral Ecology.

We reaffirm

1. Our commitment with Integral Ecology and the Pan Amazon as a feeling and conviction that is at the base of the bet that summons us in this initiative of the International Federation of Fe y Alegría.

• It is a new paradigm, it questions, questions and rejects the logic of neoliberal capitalism, coloniality and helps to promote a culture of coexistence, relationships, care of one's own body and territory. It is an invitation to walk the path with native peoples as equals.

• This task presupposes the recognition of the centrality of human dignity: "We have to bring human dignity back to the center and build on that pillar the alternative social structures we need" (Fratelli tutti- FT, n.168). And there is no way to do this if we do not approach the other.
  

2. The challenge of universalizing the initiative through the incorporation of integral ecology as a transversal axis of all education and social action of Fe y Alegría, emphasizing the processes of integral formation and encouraging processes for the growth of new actors, with agency and capacity to transform their environments and commitment to the territories with special attention to the Amazonian worlds. And we do it from the accompaniment and construction of knowledge with and from the social subjects that, historically and culturally, have promoted a non-destructive form of relationship with the environment and their surroundings.

3. The need to have a more evangelical and popular educational practice, which combines firmness, struggle, stubbornness, humility, fruitfulness, critical thinking and tenderness. "Tenderness is the path taken by the bravest and strongest men and women" (FT, n.194). This tenderness is an attitude of affection, of sincere concern and concrete love for others.

4. The mystique of fraternity, accompanied by an organization that encourages and helps to solve the problems of the poor. "Love, full of small gestures of mutual care, is also civil and political and is manifested in all actions that seek to build a better world" (FT, n. 181). (FT, n. 181)

5. Solidarity making our own "the cry and the cry of the poorest" the cry of nature, the call for change and transformation, enough of violence, enough of destruction.

6. The importance of opening the windows, the doors to look at our world from its ambivalence and complexity, a sick world, affected by the pandemic that has uncovered the reality of inequity, injustice, exclusion, systematic discrimination of the poorest of the indigenous peoples.

How can we do this?

Educationally

• By being able to read reality in its complexity, to know the territory, to strengthen identity and cultural diversity. With a notion of common territory that leads us to link ourselves.

• Promoting the recovery of the knowledge and wisdom of the elders, with open classrooms linked to the community.

• Generating greater awareness and better popular educational practices.

• Rethinking the school we want from the feeling-thinking as brothers and sisters in this common home, respecting the worldview and the concept of good living.

• Being responsible and ethical to accept the gift of creation, not as owners, because we are called to cooperate, to take care with heart and reason.

In the social-community sphere

• Promoting profound changes in the ways and means of relating to nature, social justice. From the culture conversion to the environmental issue, common home. "We are guardians of nature and we are part of it".
• Working with grassroots organizations and strengthening the organizational base and empowering their protagonism, giving tools for them, migrants, indigenous, women, children, adolescents, youth.
• Promoting solidarity as a principle of action and behavior for all times, thinking about the common good.
• Valuing what we have in the territory, as jealous guardians of cultures, languages, nature. The strength of women and their organizations, community wisdom, we assume the challenge of knowing these dynamics and the cycles of nature. Let us learn from the indigenous peoples who struggle, resist and seek to achieve rights, to an intercultural, bilingual education, built from the territories, with food sovereignty, health in dialogue with ancestral wisdom and a sustainable economy based on the respectful use of the diverse resources of their territories.

In the political sphere

• Working educational resilience with political sense through:

1. a. Recording: investigating what is happening in the territory.
2. Revealing-understanding: making visible and denouncing the reality without keeping silent.
3. Recover-knowledge: critically the history, the memory of the PPOO, this encouraging the memory of past events, to look to the future.
4. Resist-reciprocity: From the margins, from other educational and development models.

• Working in NETWORK

1. From and with the people, from below, so that their voices are heard, counting on a strategic communication plan.
2. Connecting, articulating with other actors, Amazonízate FOSPA movement; COICA; CEAMA; REPAM; REIBA, RESAI, and other civil society organizations, to Amazonize the world.
3. To influence educational, environmental and economic public policies
4.  To safeguard the Amazon through alliances with the peoples and ecumenical alliances.

Each one of the educators of Fe y Alegria subscribe to this statement

• Promoting the construction of knowledge from and with the actors of the territory, through comprehensive training, accompaniment, exchange of knowledge and pedagogical, social, political and community practices that take into account issues such as integral ecology, interculturalism and bilingual education in the Amazon region.
•  Strengthening joint and concerted action with other actors in the territory, at regional, national and international levels, contributing to the strengthening of a social fabric for social transformation and the defense of the right to quality education, the care of the "Common House" and the rights of indigenous communities that have historically inhabited and protected the region from devastation.
• Those of us who have participated in this III Biannual Meeting entitled "Building solidarity, hope from the Pan Amazon" subscribe to this declaration and commit ourselves to continue promoting, from the International Federation Fe y Alegría, the initiative Integral Ecology Network and Pan Amazon as a concrete response to the great challenge of working for our Common Home.

Given on July 16, 2021

Download Declaration in PDF

Source: CPAL