Source:
AMU News n. 4/2013
On
the Mountain Range of the Andes to Bolivar (3,200 meters), a school for
children and teens is born, from the initiative of the parish priest and the
local community of the Focolari, in cooperation with the AMU.
“Upon
my departure from Lima, I had in hand only a piece of paper where a friend had
written down the principal stages of the journey: Trujillo, Cajamarca, Celendin
and finally Bolívar. A total of 31 hours of travel, the last 12 along an
excavated road. The bus, filled with people crowded together amidst sacks of
rice and other things, reached its destination at 10:30 in the evening. While
we disembarked, a group of people started to sing; it seemed like a welcoming
committee and with great surprise I realized that it was for me! The final
hours of the trip was made in total darkness, I couldn’t make out where I was.
The next day, when I woke up, I found myself in front of a marvellous panorama.
I told myself: I am in Paradise!”
It
is Walter Cerchiaro, an Italian, who has been in Perù for 6 years who related
this. After this first trip, he went to Bolivar several times to meet the
community of the Focolare Movement. Now that some of the roads have been fixed
the trip only takes 25 hours!
In
this little city at 3,200 meters above sea level, a new project of the AMU
(Action for a United World Onlus) is being launched. The inhabitants of Bolívar
are around 2,500, who are spread out in 30 communities throughout a very vast
territory. The parish priest of Bolívar, Fr. Emeterio, a priest “of the
frontier” and the originator of the project, goes to visit them 1-2 times a
year. Sometimes it takes him 2 days of travel by donkey, which is their
equivalent of a car (in Bolívar you can count the cars with the fingers of one
hand).
“Some
people live by agriculture, Walter relates. They grow potatoes, hay for the
animals; there are also some dairy cows. Some of them also find jobs in public
places (school, town hall) but the majority of the adults look for work along
the coast: the men as farmers and the women as domestic helpers in some
families. The consequences of this situation were immediately apparent: in
Bolivar there are only children and the elderly”.
«Fr.
Emeterio knows everyone and he realized that many of the children did not
attend the public school. The reason is evident: their parents live in chacras
(small pieces of land) and they need strong hands to work the land, even the
arms of the children are needed. Two years ago the parish priest began a school
in the area of the parish. He started the detailed task of going from family to
family, assuring them that he would also provide one meal for each child. Then
he rented a house because the space that he had was not big enough; and in a
short time there were 80 children who came! Some of them have to walk for hours
and hours every day just to reach the school.
In
Perù the government assures the payment of the salaries of the teachers even in
the private schools, if they can give sufficient guaranties; the school already
receives this subsidy. But there is the need to stabilize and secure the
carrying-out of the scholastic activities, and the fact that the premises being
used is rented does not help matters. After the first 3 months of activities,
for example, they had to move out because the owner needed the premises. The
AMU project aims at guaranteeing the continuity of the scholastic activities;
for this reason a new school will be built, made up of 11 classrooms and a room
for the secretary. It will be able to
accommodate around 250 children and teens and will include the elementary and
high-school levels. There is already the land that belongs to the parish, for
the building. It is quite vast and is very suitable”.
“There
is no competition with the public school because they are aware of not being
able to reach everyone. They do not have the staff available to go from family
to family to raise public awareness the way Fr. Emeterio did”.
«Then
– Walter concluded – we can already foresee another objective. There is a strip
of territory that is bigger and further away, wherein the children are not able
to reach the school even after walking for long hours. What is needed for them
is a protected environment, a home-family that can house them, with qualified
personnel to take care of them. A dream? Maybe, or, simply the second phase of
the project, We’ll see!”.
Source:
AMU News n. 4/2013
This is simply beautiful, people filled with true and pure love that live with Jesus in their hearts and souls!
RispondiEliminaLove you so much!!! So humble and thankful to God for being part of Chiara's big family.