PFI Italy invites Frei Betto to Talk about Youth and Promotes Culture Circle on Personal and Collective Liberation

Paulo Freire Institute of Italy is a nonprofit association established in 30 December, 2005. Emphasizes, among its principles the assertion of creative and liberating potential of Education as a practice oriented for the change and as dialogic form by excellence of communication. Overall, IPF Italy sees in adult’s education and other social and cultural activities the main tools for promotion and development of people and communities, with a view to “be more”, according to the famous expression used by Paulo Freire.

For the month of March 2013, IPF Italy thought in two concomitant actions to realize the emancipatory purpose of the institution.

Young People and the Participation – activing new forms of citizenship and democracy is the theme of the lecture that was conducted by Frei Betto on 19 March, 2013, in the Community of Novello, Piedmont region, province of Cuneo, Italy. The lecture is an initiative in partnership of Paulo Freire Institute of Italy, the Training Center Milton Santos – Lorenzo Milani and YEPP (Youth Empowerment Partnership Programme, also from Italy).

Founded in 2003, Training Center Milton Santos – Lorenzo Milani is an articulation between civil society entities in Brazil (Curitiba – PR) and in Italy (Piedmont – Cuneo). Together the entities share challenges and seek ways out to maximize the resistance and the struggle of workers for decent living conditions by construction, dialogue and systematization of knowledge. The basic principle of the Training Centre is appreciation and use of popular knowledge: popular education is for them one of the main paths to awareness and to the search for alternative answers to discriminatory logic of the market economy, especially when it occurs through the construction of new human relations based on solidarity and respect for differences.

In Brazil the entities that integrate Training Center Milton Santos – Lorenzo Milani are “CEFURIA – Centro de Formação Urbano Rural Irmã Araújo” (in English, Urban Rural Training Center Irmã Araújo), a civil society organization, nonprofit, which its proposal is to strengthen the popular organization and people’s struggles, involves works in the areas of health, transport, sanitation etc.); “CEPAT – Centro de Pesquisa e Apoio aos Trabalhadores” (in English, Center for Research and Support to Workers), which has links with the Jesuits; “MST – Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra” (In English, Landless Workers’ Movement); “CPT – Comissão Pastoral da Terra” (in English, Pastoral Commission of Land); “CEBs – Comunidades Eclesiais de Base” (In English, Ecclesial Communities of Base) and “Terra de Direitos” (in English, Land of Rights), a human rights organization, among others. In Italy, the center is formed by “Comunidade de Mambre” (in English, Community of Mambre), a cooperative built in 1977, in Colina de S. Martin; “Scuola di Pace di Boves” (in English, School of Peace, which has a very important work in favor to women’ rights) and Commission of Culture of the Diocese of Cuneo.

YEPP, the other responsible participant by the activity, is an international project that aims to improve the quality of life of young people in the territories that it was able to establish. Currently this project is active in 19 different points in a total of 08 countries, sponsored by NEF (a network of European foundations). It began in 2001 and, in Italy, in Turin (Mirafiori and Parella), began in 2003. The group is based on the concept of Community Development to work, taking into consideration that the young people know what is need and just need to have an incentive to acquire the power to improve their own territory (Empowerment). The other concept is the one of partnership. By bringing together various interested parts in a same object of desire (the public, private and third sector) is that it is able to achieve much greater results than when working individually.

Frei Betto, who was the  guest for this affirmative action, is a Dominican religious from Brazil, writer, theologian, author of over 50 publications and has several awards, including one international, the “José Martí”, from UNESCO, in 1994. Adept of liberation theology, a supra-denominational movement of political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unfair economic, political or socials conditions, being unauthorized and pursued by Benedict XVI when he was mayor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Frei Betto is militant of pastoral and social movements and held the position of Special Assistant to the President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva between 2003 and 2004 and was coordinator of Social Mobilization of “Fome Zero” program, still in this administration.

Frei Betto was a personal friend of Paulo Freire and with him and Ricardo Kotscho wrote the book “Essa Escola Chamada Vida” (in English, This School Called Life) by the Editora Ática, São Paulo, in 1985. Frei Betto says that when he was a student of Political Sciences, over 25 years ago, in the United States, read “(…) his revolutionary book, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which was a requirement (…) and because of this book and others, inspired me to become a monk of Ananda Marga, and dedicate my life to change the world.”

Essere Pìu

Personal growth and collective liberation in the perspective of Freirean Pedagogy

“La disumanizazione, che non si verifica solo in coloro che si vedono rubare la loro umanità, ma anche in quelli che la rubano, seppure in maniera differente, è una distorsione ad essere di più… la disumanizzazione, anche se è un fatto concreto nella storia, non è però un destino ineluttabile, ma il risultato di un “ordine” ingiusto, che genera la violenza degli oppressori, la quale a sua volta generea un essere di meno”(P. Freire, Pedagogia degli Oppressi).

And, turning back to the perspective of “being more” mentioned above, “being more” is an expression that Paulo Freire used to indicate the path of humanization which awaits every human being who wants to be human. We all live (suffer, exercise) conditions of oppression and, to have freedom, we are called to an effort to manage to our critical consciousness. This way, we can potentiate the humanity which is on us and create conditions for the freedom of all.

Through the Freirean methodology of “Culture Circle” this theme was explored in more this formative meeting promoted by Paulo Freire Institute of Italy, in the same day 19 March, 2013, from 8pm to 10pm, thinking in an era that induces us to radically review criteria and methods we use and we choose in our daily lives. The conduction of the meeting was facilitated by Piergiorgio Reggio, vice president of the Institute, and also had the participation of members of “trentino” group of this same Institute.

Piergiorgio is educator, trainer and researcher, and is professor of Contract Lecturer of Communication Pedagogy and pedagogical coordinator of the MA in Intercultural Education, of the Faculty of Education, at the Università Cattolica di Milano. He was one of the founders of the Italian Institute of Evaluation and director since 2008. He was also a member of AIV (Italian Association of Evaluation) since 1998. He has conducted evaluative interventions for public, private and nonprofit organizations, in Italy and other European countries since 1990. He provided the following contact: piergiorgio.reggio@valutare.org

The meeting began by a self-training journey and with preparations for the seventh edition of the School of Freiren Pedagogy, which later this year will be held in Trentino, from 28 August to 01 September 2013.

O Essere Pìu – Personal growth and collective liberation in the perspective of the Freirean Pedagogy, however, happened in Barycentro, Piazza Venezia, 38, in Trento.