Where the sidewalk ends

Since the time of St. Ignatius, education has always been at the heart of the Jesuit Mission. As Patxi Álvarez SJ highlights in the introduction to the recent edition of Promotio Iustitiae on “Education at the Margins”, the formation that Jesuit schools have provided for children, youth, and adults has served as a benchmark for quality education worldwide.
Today, many efforts exist to try to stay in keeping with the tradition of the Society of Jesus, where Ignatius’ team was committed to ensuring that a lack of economic resources did not prevent students from accessing a quality education.
Fe y Alegría, an international movement which has spread to 20 countries in Latin America and Africa, could be understood as a symbol of the efforts made to bring the rich experience of a Jesuit education to those living at the margins, or “where the sidewalk ends.”
Fe y Alegría together with two other Jesuit educational networks that work with the most vulnerable, Jesuit Refugee Service and the Cristo Rey Network, have been meeting for over a year in order to build what is now being called the Catholic Schools Network Serving Low Income Learners (CSNL). This group is planning possible joint actions focused on improving the educational services of their students, a key priority of the Jesuit mission.
In one of their last meetings, this group began reaching out to Jesuit Commons in order to talk about possible collaboration with the blending learning initiatives of the well-known initiative, “Higher Education at the Margins”.
We look forward to seeing how this group of networks will evolve and coordinate their efforts in order to meet two of their main goals set for this upcoming year – teacher effectiveness and job training.
Don’t forget to take a look at “Education at the Margins” to see what is taking place globally to serve the educational needs of the most vulnerable.
If you want to read more about “Education at the Margins” check out the recent edition of Promotio Iustitiae [English link] A Spanish version of the document can be found here.